I'll Be Your Aegis Through This Strife
by LemonPuddingz
Summary: Fayte Aegis is an ex-SOLDIER. Illness brought her to become an experiment known in secret as Project F. It has been years since she deserted and still she runs, afraid of going back, but what will happen she runs straight back into what she fears? OC
1. Chapter 1:  You think I'm your what?

The heavy footfalls of the beast beneath me brought a thunder to the silent air as we traveled. Both of us were beginning to tire or else our travel would have been more silent. She slowed and turned to follow a steep cliff in front of us, causing me to grip her fur slightly harder than she would have liked. With a snort of disapproval she turned a bit to let me steady myself. "Sorry" I whispered as I laid my head down on the back of her neck. I closed my eyes and began to drift off to sleep when suddenly she slowed and then stopped. "Why have we stopped?" I asked as I sat back up.

"Look and see for yourself" she answered me telepathically. I looked out over the cliff side to what lay below to find myself scanning over the remnants of a dead city. "Do you want me to stop here?" she asked. I jumped from the large cat's back. She stood half my height at her back and she had a lean body covered in white fur and some deep indigo stripes. Her ear and tail tips had long tufts of indigo, feathery fur and her eyes were completely black. She was magnificent and strong and obviously tired.

I knew she wanted to rest but I wanted to know my surroundings. My mako-blue eyes scanned my surroundings once more. I needed to be sure of them. Something in the distance caught my attention. It was thin and stood possibly as tall as me. Without a word I walked towards it, and the closer I got the more obvious to me it was that it was a buster sword much like the one I had on my back. It began to act as an amplifier and as I neared it, I could feel the city and something else… geostigma. At least half the children there seemed to have it; at least that's what I felt. There was something else as well; the presence of an ex-SOLDIER, like myself. "Let's keep moving. There's too much pain here" I said as I turned and got back on her.

"I feel it too, the geostigma and the SOLDIER" she said. "But we need to rest, especially you, and this may be our only chance to do it for a while. Do you want to aggravate your condition?"

"I'm fine" I argued as my eyes fell to my well-concealed body. I had buckled knee-high boots on over leggings and gloves over a long sleeve undershirt. Over the whole ensemble, I wore a tight, mock-neck, sleeveless dress made of leather that buckled at the neck, twice on the chest, twice at my ribs, and once on my hip. It was split up once side on the bottom for easy movement and everything I wore was black. Even my buster sword was made of a black metal. I had my reasons for being well covered and wearing black.

"You are not fine" she growled. "We can spend the night there and leave in the morning, okay?"

I ran my fingers through my messy bangs of my white-blond hair. "If I say no again, you'll make me go."

"I knew you'd agree" she mused. She paced the cliff for a moment looking for the least steep place and then, without warning, she jumped and ran down the place with the least grade. We hit the bottom hard and I had to brace myself so I wouldn't hit my head on her shoulder. She got her bearings and continued to run. It wasn't easy riding a beast of her kind. While running they had little regard for the comfort of their riders. Sometimes she was gentler because she knew I was in bad condition. We were old friends. I had raised her from a cub, as the majority of my people did. Though most of the time this was meant for training, not friendship. They were trained for speed and versatility. The best of them, like her, could run as fast as the fastest motorcycle at its top speed. They were magnificent, and not all were telepathic, in fact, none were. It was me, a part of my condition, that brought us closer that way.

I looked at the approaching city. It wouldn't take us long to get there at our current speed. I once again rested my head between her shoulder blades and closed my eyes. It wasn't long before I felt her slowing and sat up again. I stepped down off her back and looked around. Pain shot through my body as I scanned my surroundings. I could feel geostigma everywhere. So this was Edge.

We walked forward into the city. The sky seemed greyer since we had gotten here. The people droned around like lazy bees in an enormous steel hive. Parts of the city just seemed worn down while others were completely destroyed. 'So much pain and sadness' I thought. 'Why did I come here?'

Some children ran out past us as I noticed that we had begun to attract strange looks. "They must not see things like you" I said.

"What do you mean things?" she growled.

"Sorry" I said as I looked around some more. "I don't know if there will be anywhere to put you" I muttered as I realized that there wasn't even a zoo here. It was a grey and desolate place with sick children everywhere. I was broken from my thoughts by a tug on my dress.

"Miss?" asked a small, childlike voice. I looked down to see an adorable little girl with big brown eyes and long brown hair tied back and braided with a pink bow. "Is that your pet?"

I smiled and laughed at the innocent question. "No, Dear. This is my friend."

"What's your friend's name?"

"Atlatl" I responded. Atlatl stepped forward at the sound of her name and brought her head down to the girl. "You can pet her" I said.

The girl smiled as she reached up and stroked Atlatl's fur. "My name's Marlene. What's yours?" she asked.

I was a bit shocked at her open and cheerful attitude but at the same time I knew she didn't have the stigma. "My name is Fayte Aegis. Nice to meet you, Marlene."

She seemed absorbed in Atlatl for a moment and then she asked "Why do you have a big kitty, Fayte?"

I wasn't expecting the question but I smiled. "I ride her. She takes me places." Marlene smiled wider and patted her head. "Want to try?" I asked her. She looked a bit scared at first but then smiled and nodded. I picked her up and swiftly placed her on Atlatl's back. Effortlessly I hopped on behind her and nudged Atlatl forward.

We rode at a slow walk through the city while Marlene pointed out different aspects of the city. It wasn't long though before we heard someone calling Marlene's name.

"Marlene! Where are you?" I looked over to see a woman with dark eyes and hair searching the crowd. She had a nice figure covered by a black zip up tank top over a white undershirt and black leggings with a long piece of cloth in the back and a short one in the front. She had a small ribbon tied around her arm which must have symbolized something I didn't know of.

"Do you know her?" I asked. Marlene nodded and waved. The woman ran over to us and I handed Marlene down to her.

"What were you doing?" she scolded Marlene.

"Don't worry, no harm done" I said as I reached out with my right hand. "I'm Fayte Aegis."

"Tifa Lockhart" she said as she shook my hand. "I've never seen you around here so I assume you're visiting."

"Yeah, do you know any places we can stay the night?" I asked.

"Actually, I have a bar called Seventh Heaven. We have an open room if you would like to come and stay."

"If you have a place for Atlatl then that would be great. We can work to pay if you'd like" I said.

"No need" she said. "Follow me."

We followed her across the city to a bar not far from where we had been. It became apparent that Atlatl wouldn't fit in the building so Tifa showed us the garage. She explained that the one who kept his bike there was currently out. He was apparently a delivery boy. Once Atlatl was settled in she took me inside and showed me my room. It was small but cozy and had a comfortable bed and once I was settled in I went back down the stairs and to the bar. Tifa was there cleaning the countertop.

"Thirsty?" she asked as I sat on one of the stools.

"Yes, thank you" I said as I rested my head in my hands. She walked over with a glass of water and I took it gratefully. At first I only sipped it but soon I realized how dry my throat was. I finished off the glass greedily. She quickly refilled it for me.

"Where do you come from?" she asked.

"I don't really come from anywhere. I'm an orphan" I said.

"Oh, sorry to hear. Are you going anywhere in particular?" she asked.

I shook my head. "I actually don't know where I'm going. I guess it really doesn't matter. I may never get there."

"What do you mean? I'm sure there's an end to your journey somewhere."

"There may be an end but that doesn't mean I'll see it. I have a fatal condition that may kill me soon. At this point I've actually outlived my expected lifespan" I said.

"That's not a very positive way to look at things. I guess I know someone who is a lot like you that way. You two look a lot alike, too." She paused and looked at me and then at my eyes. "Are you a SOLDIER?"

"Ex-SOLDIER" I corrected her. "How did you know?"

"Your eyes" she said.

"That's right. I forgot" I said indifferently as I fiddled with my now empty again glass. It had been a long time since I had a face to face conversation with anyone.

"I didn't know that there were any female SOLDIERs" she said.

"That's because there aren't" I snapped. She looked up in shock and I hung my head a bit. "I'm the only one."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I am a mistake they would never make twice" I said.

"Oh" she said.

"My parents died when I was seven and they plucked me off the streets when I was eleven. It had been eleven years since then and two years since the fighting ended. When will the promise they made to me come true? When will my life truly be better?" I said. She shook her head. "I really wish this borrowed time I live on would run out."

"You don't really wish that. Something will come along that will make you cherish the time you have left" she said.

"Maybe" I said as I looked towards the door. Marlene was there with a worried look on her face. "What's wrong, Dear?" I asked.

"It's Denzel" she said.

"What about him?" asked Tifa.

"He says it hurts and I don't know what to do" she said.

"Geostigma?" I asked.

"Yes, unfortunately" answered Tifa.

"I can help" I said as I stood. Marlene didn't ask questions as she ran out of the room so I could follow. She led me to a room part of the way up the stairs and sat by the bedside of a young boy.

"You must be Denzel" I said as I kneeled at his bedside. He nodded and then winced and brought a hand to his forehead. I reached out and moved his hand and hair. The geostigma had made itself at home on his forehead. He flinched away and moved my hand. I placed a hand on his cheek and turned his head back to me. As I leaned my face towards his, his eyes widened and he flinched away. "Don't worry. I don't bite" I said with a smile. I leaned down quickly and pressed my lips to his forehead feeling pain rush to my own. It was not at all an unfamiliar pain.

"It's gone" he said.

"I know" I smiled as he placed a hand to his forehead. "It should be gone long enough to let you rest."

"Thank you" he said. I nodded as I stood.

"That was very kind of you" said Tifa as we walked out of the room.

"I was happy to do it. The young should not suffer this way and since I became a SOLDIER I have been able to take pain away in that manner" I said as I walked towards my room. "I am going to retire for the night. We leave early tomorrow. Can't stay in one place too long."

"Goodnight, then" she said before I walked out. I gave into the searing pain in my forehead as soon as my door was closed. The pain exploded in stars in my vision and I barely made it to the bed which I collapsed in before I passed out.

"Oh dear, she's fallen asleep" said a female voice.

"She always did sleep a lot, at least when I knew her" a male voice added. I knew that voice.

"Zack Fair?" I asked as I opened my eyes. He wasn't far from me, leaning against a wall of the blindingly white room we were in.

"Fayte, it has been a long time since I last saw you. Wow, have you grown" he said.

"It's only been a few years" I growled. "I haven't grown that much."

"Ah, but you have grown and changed Fi-Fi. What's this I hear about you giving up on life?" he asked.

"I told you not to call me that and I can want life to end if I feel like it" I said.

He snorted in mock laughter. "If you wanted to die so badly you would have ended it yourself."

"Says who?"

"Says me. It's just how you are." He walked over and put a hand on my shoulder. "We just don't have room for you here, kid."

A tear ran down my face, as I was face to face with my only friend for the first time since he died. I grabbed his hand off my shoulder and pressed it to my face. "It hurts, Zack. I can't bear the pain anymore. Please take me away from it. Have mercy on me."

He opened his hand and pressed his palm to my face. "I know it hurts but someone else needs you. You'll know him when you meet him but right now he needs your help. Big things are coming."

"You can do it" said the female voice. "You're strong. You can make it."

My eyes widened and I panicked a bit as the messy black haired boy began to fade away. "Don't go" I begged as his mako-blue eyes disappeared to me. "Don't leave me!"

I shot upright in my bed, then grabbed my head and groaned. Sitting up fast sucked. My gaze averted to the window as my first memory of Zack filled my thoughts.

Another SOLDIER led me down a corridor and to one of the quarters at the end. "You won't be living here, but you'll report here first every morning" he instructed me. He knocked on the door and a thump came from the inside of the room then the door opened to reveal a lean, fair-skinned boy, a few years older than me, with mako-blue eyes and messy black hair spiked in the back. "This is Zack Fair. He will be your first instructor. I'll leave you with him." The SOLDIER walked off and Zack yawned and stretched. I couldn't contain a giggle at his very un-SOLDIER like behavior.

He looked at me and smiled. "I didn't know there were any female SOLDIERs" he said.

"There aren't. I'm the only one. My name's Fayte Aegis."

"Well, Fayte, I'm sure you know my name" he said. "They don't usually have SOLDIERs like me train anyone, but I guess that this is how it will be. I guess I should start with some rules… uh… rule number one: don't show up too early."

The memory faded as I smiled. All of his rules had been like that and it had taken me weeks just to follow rule number one right. I stood from my bed and walked over to the mirror, adjusting my hair before gathering my things and walking downstairs. Tifa was washing glasses behind the bar.

"Leaving?" she asked. I nodded. "Well, have a good trip. I hope you find what you're looking for." As I walked out, I could hear the phone ring. "He's not here anymore" I heard Tifa say. I had half a mind to ask her who he was but I didn't ask anything. Instead, I walked out to the garage and woke Atlatl, who didn't protest. I climbed onto her back and walked her out into the city.

"Let's go back to the cliff. We can get back on track" I suggested. She nodded and took off at a run. The morning was sad and grey and once I was out of the city, where my senses were clouded by the geostigma around me, I felt some new presences. They were all fast moving; a SOLDIER and three others. 'Hopefully they'll let us pass' I thought as we continued in a straight line. As I neared them, the three presences began to feel odd. They were unnatural and two were suddenly after the SOLDIER.

"It's not your fight" Atlatl warned.

I tried to ignore it but suddenly I felt dark presences going after the SOLDIER. I couldn't just stand by and watch. "We have to do something, Atlatl" I said. "Now go there!"

She reluctantly obeyed me and charged at the men who were in a very dangerous motorcycle chase. There were two silver haired men and a blond. I knew immediately that the blond was the SOLDIER. As we approached, I took out daggers and threw them at the shadow animals that ran about. I had already missed a great deal of the battle. The blond was suddenly disarmed and the man with longer silver hair flipped his bike over the blond's and shot him, knocking his goggles off.

Once the man was back on the ground, I tackled him off of his bike. The blond seemed to notice as we skidded to a stop but he was being chased by the shadows. "Mother?" said the man I had tackled. I looked down at him. "Mother, it's you!" he said.

"I'm not anyone's mother" I said as I got off of him in alarm.

"No, you're Mother. You have to be" he insisted. He approached and tried to grab me but I blocked his every attempt. "Please come with us Mother" he said as the blond and the shorter haired one circled by us again. Atlatl was nowhere to be seen and the shadows all suddenly closed in on the blond but then vanished. The man I was facing looked up at the cliff and then ran off and grabbed his bike. They all suddenly retreated and left me angry that I couldn't do more. The blond skidded to a stop and watched as they retreated. Once they were gone, he turned to me.

"Who are you?" he demanded calmly. I took a moment to study him. He looked well built but hit it under layers of black clothing. Black pants and cloth hanging to the ground on one side was his choice and then his top was a vest zipped up so that it showed off only a little of his chest. He had one sleeve on his left arm and black gloves. His left shoulder had a black guard on it with a silver wolf coming out of the front with a ring in its mouth. My eyes moved to his face. He was fair-skinned like Zack and his blond hair was spiked up in all directions as if it could defy gravity. His eyes were mako-blue like mine and Zack's and he had been using a buster sword.

'This must be the SOLDIER that lives around here' I thought. I knew that if that was true I would have to be cautious. It had been a long time since I trusted my own kind. "My name is Fayte Aegis" I said as I placed my buster sword on my back. There was a thump behind me and soft breath on the back of my head. He seemed a bit startled by her sudden appearance. "This is my transportation, Atlatl" I said not even having to turn around to know it was her. "Who are you?" I demanded.

"Cloud Strife."

My eyes widened a bit. 'So that's who he is' I thought. He was a hero, a man known among all SOLDIERs, at least now. I was surprised he didn't know my name. Perhaps he was never informed. I figured that because I was a deserter, they would have told all SOLDIERs about me.

He revved the engine on his bike which got my attention but before he could take off, I stopped him with a wave of my hand. "Where are you going?" I asked. I didn't expect an answer.

"I'm going to Healin. Rufus ShinRa is there. I need to speak to him" he answered bluntly.

"I'm coming too" I said. "I have questions of my own."

He looked at Atlatl as I jumped up on her. "I'm not waiting for you."

"We know where Healin is" I stated. "But even so, you won't have to." I nudged Atlatl's side and she took off like a bullet towards Healin. By the time I looked back, he was already half a mile behind me and not gaining an inch. A laugh escaped me, but that wasn't the foremost thing on my mind. I wanted to know who this "Mother" was and why they thought I was her, and if there was anything I didn't know about myself, Rufus ShinRa would definitely know it.


	2. Chapter 2: ShinRa's Daughter

**A/N - I do not own Final Fantasy Advent Children or any of its ideas or characters.**

I managed to beat Cloud to Healin by quite a distance. As I passed the sign that said "Healin Lodge" I looked up to see the old white building on the hillside. We traveled over the bridge and through a small gap before coming to a clearing of dirt in front of the building. As I got off of Atlatl I became quite cautious.

"Maybe you should wait for Cloud" she said. I shook my head as the sound of his motorcycle came into range.

"He's already here" I said as he drove in. He got off of his bike and strode forward. I could tell he meant business. We climbed the system of wooden stairs to the top floor of the building and without hesitation he shoved the door open with one hand on his buster sword. He pulled it out and immediately met the weapon of a man inside. The man withdrew and went to attack him. As the man swung, Cloud simply sidestepped and the man ran past both of us and out the door. He made a startled sound as I stepped in and turned to run back in but Cloud slammed the door in his face. I hadn't gotten a very good look at him but he had long red hair in a pony tail and messy in the front with goggles and a white button up shirt with a black jacket over the top.

"Okay, so you're good" he said from the outside the door and Cloud locked it. I took a step to my right to get out of the way if something should happen. The door on the other end of the room opened and Cloud took a few steps forward. A bald man in sunglasses entered the room. He had on gloves and a suit. "Hey, Rude, looking sharp" said the man on the other side of the door. The bald man, whose name I now knew was Rude, drew his weapon but Cloud was too fast and had his sword up in his face before he could do anything. He grunted and backed down.

"Good, you fight like the SOLDIER you once claimed to be" said a familiar voice and a man in a power wheel chair rolled out. He was covered in blankets and reeked of geostigma. "You haven't lost your touch" he added after he had stopped and the bald man joined him at his side.

Cloud lowered his weapon and I stepped forward. "Rufus ShinRa, do I feel sorry for you" said Cloud.

Rufus looked towards Rude who shifted on his feet and cleared his throat. ShinRa then looked back at us. "The day of the explosion…"

"What do you want from me?" Cloud interrupted him.

He continued "I managed to get out of the building before it collapsed." That was what it sounded like but Cloud had spoken in the middle of his sentence.

"Who were the guys who attacked me?" said Cloud but when Rufus continued to speak he seemed angry. "I'm leaving."

Rufus stopped and brought a hand to his face. "We need your assistance, Cloud."

"Not interested" Cloud said as he shook his head.

"I acknowledge" Rufus continued. "That ShinRa owes the planet a lot. It goes without saying that my company and I are the ones that put the world in the sorry state it's in. Therefore, it's our responsibility to set things right."

"I'm still out here!" yelled the man outside.

"As a first step we have commenced an investigation in Sephiroth's wake" Rufus droned.

"Yep, at the Northern Cave" agreed the man outside.

"What do you think we found?" asked ShinRa. For the first time, Cloud showed some concern. "Nothing… nothing at all" Rufus continued. "You can relax. However, not all went as planned. We were interrupted by the same three that attacked you. Kadaj and his gang."

"Kadaj" said Cloud.

ShinRa moved his hand up and down. "It seems he doesn't want us finishing what we started. Really, what could they be thinking?"

Cloud looked down "What does it have to do with me?"

"You're our buddy, aren't you?" asked the man outside. Cloud kicked the door.

"Kadaj's group is young and violent, as dangerous as they come. That's why we decided it might be in out best interest to hire a little muscle" explained Rufus.

"Too bad, I'm a delivery boy now" said Cloud.

"You're all we have" argued ShinRa. "Cloud, look, you're an ex-SOLDIER, aren't you?"

"Heh, in my head" said Cloud. He turned and unlocked and opened the door. He barely had it open when he asked, "What is this stuff about Mother?"

"Why? Did Kadaj say something to you?" asked ShinRa.

"To both of us" I interrupted. They gazed at me for a moment.

"No surprise" said Rufus. "There are plenty of kids that miss their mothers. That's the world we live in. I hear there are orphans living with you. Think about it, don't you want to put smiles back on their faces?"

"You're one to talk" I hissed from what had become my corner.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Why don't you try putting a smile on the face of the orphan you adopted?" I growled.

"I'm sorry if you're unhappy. I haven't seen you in years" ShinRa said.

"Gah! You know that's not what I mean!" I nearly yelled. "Why did they call me Mother?"

"How is your condition?"

"Stop getting off topic."

"I'm not" he defended himself. "How much longer do you have?"

"I started borrowing time six months ago" I said and I looked down. "Father, it's really bad."

"You haven't called me Father is so long" he said. "You must resemble their mother in some way."

My eyes widened "You mean…"

"Yes" he said. I hung my head. Now I knew exactly why they thought I was their mother.

"Do you think it would work?" I asked. ShinRa had caught on a long time before that I was being vague because Cloud didn't know anything.

"I honestly don't know" he said. We both knew that they wanted Jenova. We just didn't know what for… and if what I was thinking was right, then I could be used as a substitute.

"I'm scared" I admitted.

"I know… but I was to make it better for you too" he said. He looked to Cloud again. "All we want in the end is to rebuild our world, Cloud" he said as he lifted his hand.

Cloud turned around and seemed lost in thought for a moment "But I…"

The red haired man jumped in "Come on, Cloud think about it. Together we could rebuild ShinRa."

Cloud looked surprised for a moment and then moved for the door. "Not interested" he said as he swung it open and pushed passed the red haired man.

ShinRa and Rude called out "Reno!" as the door closed on its own. It opened again and the so called Reno stepped in.

ShinRa turned to me "How far has it spread?"

"It covered most of the left side of my body now" I said.

"I'm sorry, I never thought that this would happen" he said. "If I had known…"

"You couldn't have" I said. "All I ask is that you keep this a secret and say some nice things at my funeral."

He shook his head "You never change."

I walked forward and took his exposed hand, moving the cloth up off of it. "You have it too" I said. He gripped my hand a bit. I pulled his hand up and moved it toward my lips. "Let me take away your pain" I whispered.

"No" he said as he tugged his hand away.

"But…"

"I've seen you do that too many times. Even if I wasn't your real father, the pain you took from others always horrified me" he said.

"I'm sorry" I said. "I'll try not to do that anymore. But I do it without thinking, especially for those who have geostigma."

"You want to help people. Don't waste that. You may not have much time left but don't waste it running from the past."

"I'll try not to" I said.

"Help Cloud" he said. "You're the most powerful SOLDIER that ever existed. Use your ability to help him."

I turned to leave but before I did, I looked back. "If I die before I get the chance to see you again, I just want you to know that after all that has happened I should hate you for what you did to me." I averted my gaze and then looked back. "I should but I can't. After all that happened, you still care about me and that's more than my real parents ever did." I looked down. "Thank you."

"Thank you, too" he said. "For not giving up on me and hating me. Now, stay safe."

"I'll try" I said as I opened the door and walked out giving him a small wave as I jumped the railing altogether and sailed through the air and onto Atlatl's back. To my surprise, Cloud was waiting for me on his bike.

"We need to talk. I have things I need to ask you" he said. I nodded, grinning internally. I just knew he was going to ask about that whole conversation with Rufus. He started his bike and looked back at me.

"I'll follow you. Just go" I told him. He took off towards Edge and for the first time, being behind him, I caught the scent of geostigma. 'He has it too' I thought as I followed him.

We rode for the better part of ten minutes before he stopped by a small stream. I got down off of Atlatl and she walked over and sat by his bike. We walked over to the stream and I kneeled down and then sat by it.

He didn't waste any time. "Who are you?" he asked.

"My full name" I said to start with the basics, "Is Fayte Jenova Aegis-ShinRa. I'm the adopted daughter of Rufus ShinRa and an ex-SOLDIER."

"You were a SOLDIER? I never heard of a woman SOLDIER" he said.

"I was an experiment" I growled. "I guess if I really wanted to do this right I should start from the beginning." I shifted and moved closer to the stream. "I like to tell people that my parents died what I was seven. ShinRa is the only one who knows the truth. My parents were abusive and cruel and at the age seven I had already had enough. I killed them both while they were sleeping and ran away from home. Atlatl wasn't big enough to carry me at the time so I left her in my village and after four years of wandering I found myself in Midgar. Three months after my birthday I ran into Rufus ShinRa. It happened quite literally happen that way. As he stepped out of his limo he hit me with the door. For an apology he took me in and fed me and by the end of the night he decided he liked me and asked if I wanted to be his daughter. He seemed nice enough so of course I said yes. Anyone was better than my parents. As the years went on, I got to know about SOLDIER and even got to meet some of the men but then my life took a sudden downturn again. I suddenly got very sick and I was soon diagnosed with a fatal heart condition. My verdict was six months. I wouldn't live to see my fourteenth birthday." I paused and Atlatl got up and walked over, curling around me and placing her head in my lap.

"Are you sure you want to continue?" she asked. "I know this is painful."

I nodded and leaned back on her for a back rest. I looked over at Cloud and he wasn't even looking at me. He was staring at something off in the distance. "Three months later we found out, the scientists at ShinRa got a brilliant idea. They got in their heads that Jenova was female so maybe a girl would more readily accept her genetic material. A month later, I had taken a turn for the worst. ShinRa was so worried he hadn't slept in days. It was then that the scientists brought their theory back up. They asked both me and my father if we wanted to try and we agreed because I didn't have much time left anyway. Two weeks later I was taken in to the lab for tests and then the experiment began. It was horrible."

I felt a tear escape my eye. Quickly, I wiped it away and took a breath to calm down. "Are you okay?" he said. Now, he was looking at me.

I nodded and continued. "Hollander was the one who worked on me. He was horrible. My body rejected the majority of the first Jenova cells he used. For some reason, I had a defense against them that the men didn't. Hollander put me through several procedures to lower my resistance. Each procedure got more and more painful to the point where I would scream in pain with each injection… but it worked. By the time all the procedures had ended and the Jenova cells had done their thing and gotten a foothold in my body it had been four months since it all began. I had outlived my original projected life expectancy by two and a half months. Furthermore, when they checked my health, I was perfectly healthy. All my problems were gone. As time went on and the Jenova cells made more changes, my hair turned from red to blond and my eyes tuned blue from the mako. They soon were afraid that I would deteriorate over time because of the sudden changes happening in my body but I never did. They gave me a month of rest and then assigned a SOLDIER to train me. The entire project was called Project F. My middle name was changed to Jenova. All the things that came had changed my life for the better. I was trained to the highest level then man could train me to and when I faced Sephiroth as a test, I full out won. After all that time, Project F had been a success. I was closer to being Jenova than Sephiroth was. In fact, I'm the closest they've ever come to a perfect Jenova clone. It scares me to think that now. One day I found out about Jenova and what she really was. I knew immediately that I was a monster and I found out that they may make more of me and my father wasn't going to do anything to stop them. I was afraid and hurt and against the wishes of my teacher and my best friend, I ran away."

"Who was this man?" asked Cloud. "I guess I'm curious."

"I doubt you knew him. His name was Zack Fair" I answered.

Cloud looked shocked. "I knew him. He was one of my best friends, too."

"It was a year after he died that I heard the news. I was devastated" I said.

"I was there" said Cloud. "But he never talked about you."

"I made him promise to keep me a secret" I said.

"I made him a promise to live out both of your lives."

"I should be joining him, wherever he is, very soon" I said.

"What did all of that stuff between you and ShinRa mean?" he asked.

"Two years ago I developed another fatal condition because of my Jenova cells. It was predicted that I had a year and a half to live. Six months ago I should have died. Now I'm just waiting for death to come get me. Zack says I'll find a reason to live but really, I don't see it happening" I said.

"I actually meant the 'Mother' stuff" stated Cloud.

"Oh" I breathed. "We didn't know why he would want it, but we have the feeling that Kadaj wants Jenova. It makes more sense then that I would be mistaken for 'Mother' because I am almost a perfect clone of Jenova. What worries us is if they will try to get me and use me for whatever it is they are trying to do."

"We can't take that chance" he said.

"What?" I asked.

"We can't take the chance that they'll get a hold of you and whatever they do works" he said. "I want you to come back to Edge with me. There's a bar there called Seventh Heaven…"

"Been there" I cut him off. "A woman called Tifa runs it."

"Yeah, when were you there?" he asked.

"I stayed there last night" I said. "But maybe I really should be going."

"Go with him. He needs your help and he can help you. You have a lot more in common than knowing me" Zack's voice sounded in my head.

Cloud opened his mouth but before he could say anything I spoke up more in an answer to Zack than anything. "Okay, don't bug me. I'll go" I said. I stood up and hopped on Atlatl's back. "Let's not waste any more time talking about the past."

He nodded. "I won't be coming back with you" he said. "I have somewhere else I have to go first."

"Okay, I'll just get a head start, then" I said and then I urged Atlatl on. She took off knowing I didn't want to answer any questions about my outburst.

I laid my head down on her back and nearly fell asleep when I was jerked awake and saw we were just outside of Edge. 'Why am I tired so much?' I wondered as we got to the city and headed for the bar.

When we got there, no one answered the door so I walked Atlatl to the garage to find the door open. "Stay here. I'm going for a walk" I told her. I wrote a quick note and left it under the door before I went out. Hopefully they would get back before I did. Before I left I also left my buster sword and equipment with Atlatl. I was the strongest SOLDIER ever made. I could handle a thug with my fists.

As I walked around I began to notice something strange. The children with geostigma were missing. 'Maybe I'm just not seeing things clearly' I thought. It should have bothered me but it didn't. The lack of the geostigma noise in my head allowed me to take a short walk down memory lane. I could still remember this city when it was beautiful and full of life. In my travels before I was adopted, I had been to all of these places. Suddenly a cloth was placed over my nose and mouth and I was grabbed from behind. As I struggled, I breathed, inhaling fumes off of the rag.

"Please don't be frightened, Mother" said a cool voice in my ear. "We will be very gentle with you."

'Oh no' I thought as my body went numb and limp. For a moment the world swayed from side to side and then became very blurry before I blacked out entirely.


	3. Chapter 3: Haunting Memories

**A/N - I don't own Final Fantasy or any its ideas.**

"Hey, wait up!" Zack said as he ran behind me.

"But you told me to run as fast as I could" I said. I stopped and turned around. "You're just too slow."

"You're faster than I thought you'd be" he said.

"It feels great" I said. "For so long I was bedridden and I almost wanted death to take me out of that sorry state, but now I'm glad to be alive, Zack. I'm happy I fought through it."

"I'm happy you fought it, too" said Zack. "If you hadn't, I wouldn't get to train a beautiful girl every day. I could have spent the last month with ugly men."

"It's nice to know you think I'm pretty" I giggled. "You're not so bad yourself."

*Flash*

"Ow, Fayte, that hurt" said Zack as he clutched his right arm just above the elbow. I dropped my stance and averted my gaze.

"I guess I just don't know my own strength yet" I said.

"It's okay" he said. "We only just began to train for combat so it's okay if you don't know."

I smiled and nodded, getting back into my stance. He charged me and I managed to block all of his advances and score another lucky hit. This time I struck his forearm and he winced a bit and moved away.

"Sorry!" I said as I ran over to him. "I really am not trying."

He stood up and examined it. Suddenly he gave me a mischievous smile, which after knowing him for three months I knew was trouble. "I'll forgive you if you kiss it better" he said.

I laughed and grabbed his arm, pulling him over to me. Gently, I pressed my lips to the red spot that was forming slowly into a bruise. A sharp pain flooded into my arm in the same spot as his new welt. I withdrew and placed a hand over the new pain.

"Wow, that really worked" he said. "My pain is gone!"

'Gone?' I thought. "My arm hurts" I said as I held it.

"What do you mean? It would be like you took my pain or something" he said, startled.

Wordlessly, I grabbed his arm and planted a kiss on the injury above his elbow that I caused before. Pain flooded, just as before, to that same spot on me. "Did it work?" I asked.

"Yeah, it did. Does it hurt?" he said as he pointed to my arm. I nodded.

"I can take people's pain" I said in surprise. "It must be a power I gained through the procedure."

"I never heard of a SOLDIER getting something like that through the procedure" he said.

"Have you ever heard of another female SOLDIER?" I asked pointedly.

"I guess not" he said. "You must be special." I smiled and put my hands up to continue but he put and hand to his forehead. "Ugh, I just got a terrible pain in my forehead" he said and he smiled at me. "Kiss it better?"

I laughed and walked over and got up on my toes to kiss his temple. Nothing happened, no pain. "You lair" I laughed. "You just wanted a kiss."

"Can't blame a guy for trying" he smirked. I laughed and punched his good arm playfully. "Ow" he whined.

"Don't even ask" I said as I took my stance once more.

*Flash*

The man on the table refused to let the medic check his wounds. There had been a terrorist attack and he had been hit by shrapnel. His side was torn apart and bloody and he fought off all attempts to help him. His cries of pain filled the air and after only a short time, I couldn't take the screaming anymore. I ran over and kneeled by his side. "I'm going to take your pain away" I told him. "Please let me." He stopped fighting me back, which I took as consent to do what I needed to. Quickly, I pulled up his shirt and kissed his side, tasting a bit of blood and feeling a rush of some of the most horrible pain I had ever been in. I screamed and the man stopped making noise entirely. He seemed in shock that nothing hurt. The doctors quickly grabbed him and got him to an operating room while another SOLDIER ran to my side and tried to figure out what was wrong. "I'm okay" I insisted.

*Flash*

"No, grip the handle this way" said Zack as he repositioned my hands on the sword. I blushed at his arms and how he had them around me to show me the proper way to hold the sword.

"Like this?" I asked as I showed him my corrected grip.

"Yeah, much better" he said with a smile. "Now, since you're an amateur, just swing it around to get the feel of it" he said with a laugh, ducking easily as I swung it at him.

'When did I start falling in love with this jerk?' I thought with a short laugh. He had always been my best friend, but since when did I love him this much? Little did I know that, as I was lost in thought, I had been staring at him.

"Hey, I know I'm hot but let's get back to training" he said.

Frustrated and a bit annoyed, I swung it at him again.

*Flash*

"She's amazing" said my grandfather. "From what I heard, she gets more and more like Sephiroth each day."

"She has the potential to be more than Sephiroth ever was" said a familiar voice. I peeked in the door to see Hollander. "Project F was a complete success. Once she has been evaluated, we will see how well she does and perhaps we will make more SOLDIERS like her."

"Do you think the boy training her now will be sufficient?" Grandfather asked. "Perhaps a more skilled trainer is in order."

"No, I want to see how well she does under his training" said Hollander. "If she doesn't do well enough, we will get someone else to teach her."

*Flash*

I set the weapon down and quickly backed away from it. "I don't like it" I said.

"Well, you need basic firearms training so you need to learn whether you like it or not" Zack said with his arms crossed.

"No, let's just skip it. I've decided I don't like guns" I said as I looked fearfully at the pistol.

"How about we make a deal" he said as he walked over by me. "You learn to use guns and the moment I feel you're good enough we'll never use one again."

"Why do I have to learn if I'll never use it?" I asked. "All they are is expensive noise makers with an unpleasant and deadly result."

"Swords kill too" he pointed out.

"I control all parts of my sword. Bullets can't be redirected. If someone jumps in front of my sword I can move it and miss or try to stop it. If someone jumps in front of my bullet, all I can do is watch and pray it doesn't kill them" I said.

"Good point" he said. He suddenly turned to me and gave me a puppy dog pout. It wasn't as much the pout as his beautiful eyes that I couldn't resist. "Please learn for me" he begged.

"Okay, okay" I said. "But let's get it over quickly."

"Yeah, I win" he said and he did a small victory dance.

*Flash*

"Is it just me or has your hair changed color a little?" Zack asked as he messed with my bangs a little.

"It's slowly turning blond" I stated. "My eyes used to be brown but the mako turned them blue" I said as I looked down. "Do you think I will look okay as a blond?"

He saw the concern and sadness in my eyes and pulled me into a tight embrace. "You'll be beautiful as a blond… absolutely stunning."

"Zack…" I whispered, the words I wanted to say wouldn't come out. I wanted to tell him how much I cared and ask if he cared too, but I was afraid. "Thank you" I finished instead of my heartfelt words and questions of love.

"No problem" he said as he let me go.

'I love you. I want to be with you' a voice in my head urged me to say.

"You're always there for me. You're my best friend, you know" I told him.

"I know" he said with a smile.

*Flash*

'I won' I thought. Sephiroth was kneeling on the ground in front of me, clutching his chest and gasping. I had given him a run for his money and then dealt him a blow to his chest that probably cracked a couple of ribs.

"Well… done" he gasped as he stood slowly.

I heard clapping behind me. "Amazing" said Grandfather as he walked over. I looked over to the small crowd and saw that my father was there too. I nervously tucked my white-blond hair behind my ear.

Hollander laughed "She performed better than I could ever have dreamed."

"She's perfect" commented another scientist.

"You officially have the rand of SOLDIER 1st class" said my Grandfather. "Since you beat one of the best."

"Thank you" I said. "I can't wait to tell Zack."

*Flash*

"So, you're a SOLDIER 1st class, now?" asked Zack. He seemed a bit disappointed. "You beat me to it."

"Don't worry, Zack" I said as I took his hands. "If you can train me to this point then you can be one, too."

He smiled. "You think I'm good enough?"

I nodded "As good as my hair is blond."

*Flash*

"I'm a monster, Zack. I understand everything, now" I said as I stuffed some essentials in my bag and grabbed my jacket. "I have to go. I have to get out of this place."

"You can't go" he said pleadingly. "You need to stay here." There was almost something about him that screamed out that he wanted to say more. As I walked past him again, he grabbed my arm and pulled me into a hug. "Please don't go. You have no reason to go."

"I'm sorry" I said as I hugged him back. "Now that I know the truth, I have to leave. It's too painful for me to stay here. It hurts, Zack."

"I wish I could take away your pain" he said.

"Zack, I need you to promise me something" I whispered into his shoulder.

I felt him nod against me. "I'll promise you anything" he said.

"Promise that you won't tell anyone about me, or that you trained me. My existence must be kept a secret and you can't let anyone know that I ran away or that you were here when I did" I said. He remained silent and looked away. "Please" I begged. "Promise me."

He looked me dead in the eye and said, "Promise me that you'll get a phone and give me the number. You don't even have to answer it. I just want to be able to call it if I feel like sharing news."

"I promise" I said with a smile.

"Then I promise, too" he replied. He squeezed me a bit and I blushed as I realized that I was still in his arms. I looked up into his eyes and found myself captivated by them. They were blue and clear and beautiful, like water or the sky. I felt him lean forward slightly and his face began to move towards mine. My eyes wandered to his lips, which I so longed to touch.

'If he kisses me, I don't know if I'll be able to go' I thought as he drew near. I pulled myself out of my trance and moved my head to his shoulder in another hug. "It's time for me to go" I whispered and then I pulled away only to find myself trapped in his arms. He pulled me into another hug, more tightly than before.

"Stay safe" he said.

"I will" I said as I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and felt a bit of pain in my abdomen. My last gift to him would be the removal of his pain. I grabbed my bag and opened the window. "Close this for me, will you?"

He nodded sadly and ran to the window as I leapt out. I barely heard his last word, "Goodbye."

"Bye. I'll always love you" I whispered, finally getting out the feeling that had haunted me over the year and a half that I had known him.

*Flash*

I sat on a barstool in a small bar. The town I was in was just barely on the outskirts of a desert. A girl with red hair sat on the stool next to me and ordered a shot of vodka. As I looked at her more, she reminded me of myself. For a brief moment, I wondered if that was what I would have looked like if I hadn't gone through the procedure and received the Jenova cells. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to talk to her.

As she got her drink and went to pay, I stopped her. "It's on me" I said as I laid the money down.

"Thanks" she said.

"No problem" I replied as I held my hand out. "Fayte Aegis."

"Cissnei" she replied as she shook my hand. "Where are you from?" she asked.

"Midgar" I answered, not a total lie. I didn't have to list every place I where I had lived.

"Me too" she said as she sipped her vodka.

'Odd girl, sipping vodka' I thought as I smiled at her. Maybe, she had been there more recently than me. "When were you last in Midgar?"

"About a year ago" she said with a thoughtful nod. "Why?"

"Is SOLDIER still around?" I asked as I ordered another drink for myself, something nonalcoholic.

"Afraid not" she said. "That ended when the fighting did. But I was gone before the fighting ended" she said.

"Oh," I replied. 'I wonder what happened to Zack.' "Did you happen to know anyone from SOLDIER?"

"Yeah" she replied. "I worked with them."

"If you worked with SOLDIERs then you must have been aware of the 1st class ones. Do you know if Zack Fair was ever a SOLDIER 1st class?" I inquired.

"Yeah, he was" she said. "I knew him personally."

"How is he?" I asked, somewhat excited.

Her expression dropped and she looked down. "A lot of bad things happened… maybe if I hadn't let him go…"

"What happened?" I asked, fear filling me at the thought of her answer.

"He's dead. The very SOLDIERs that he once fought alongside killed him" she said. "That was shortly before I left."

'He can't be' I thought and I began to regret cutting off communication with him, or rather, I stopped answering my phone when he called. What had made me so mad?

Was it his words?

*Flash*

"Hello?"

"Fayte! You won't believe what happened!"

"Zack? What was it this time?"

"I met this incredible girl! Her name is Aerith…"

"Oh."

*Flash*

Or was it my own jealousy?

"How did you know him?" Cissnei asked, taking me out of my thoughts.

"Well, he trained me in combat so I worked very closely with him for a year and a half" I said. 'And I loved him' my heart added.

"I'm sorry you had to find out this way" she said and she put a hand on mine.

"No, it's okay" I said. "Tell me, what happened in Midgar?"

*Flash*

"Fi-Fi, you have to wake up" Zack's voice cooed in my ear. I groaned and turned over. "Come on, Fi-Fi."

"Stop calling me that. My name is Fayte" I growled as I turned over. I slowly opened my eyes to find myself in my old room, before I had run away, with Zack hovering over me. 'Was it all a dream?' I looked up into Zack's beautiful blue eyes. "What a horrible nightmare" I said as I reached up and touched his face.

"It's not over" he said. "You have to wake up."

"I am awake" I giggled.

"No, you need to wake up…"

"Wake up, Mother" Kadaj's voice echoed through my mind. "The guest of honor shouldn't sleep through the party."

I was shocked out of my sleep by the splash of cold water on my face. A light groan escaped me as I opened my eyes and looked up at the darkened sky. How long had I been out? "What's going on?" I growled.

"Mother, it's nearly morning. It's time that you woke up" he said. "Everyone's been waiting for you."

I turned my head and looked at my surroundings. There were crystal trees glowing all around us and a statue of some sort. I turned my head towards the direction opposite of the statue and saw a pool. 'I know this place' I thought. I at least remembered the trees. 'The Forgotten Capital. I think that's what they call it now.'

Across the pool stood a lot of kids. The entire group reeked of geostigma. I scanned over them with my eyes and one of their faces caught my attention. It was Denzel. I heard a small girl cry out and looked over to see the man with the short hair holding back Marlene. "What is this?" I growled.

"Why, Mother, this is our reunion. We're all gathered here for it" Kadaj said.

"What do you mean, reunion?" I asked.

"We've all gathered so that we can be whole again. When I combine with your cells, I will no longer be a remnant and we will take revenge on the planet" he said.

"What will you be if not a remnant?" I asked calmly. He walked over and looked me dead in the eyes. His glare got more intense until I saw what he wanted me to see. "Sephiroth" I said when I realized how he looked.

"Exactly" he said. He suddenly looked towards the horizon. "The sun will be coming up soon" he stated. He then nodded over at another who approached with a syringe in his hand. Fear flooded me. I was afraid of needles.

*Flash*

"Hold her down!" yelled one man. I was fighting and struggling, giving my all to get away from the needle.

"Get those straps on her!" yelled another man and I felt leather belts binding me tightly to the cold metal table. Tears flowed freely from me and as the needle first touched my skin, a sensation of fire shot through my body. I screamed in pain as they injected the first and readied for the second. 'Someone help me' I thought.

*Flash*

"Loz, Yazoo, hold her down" said Kadaj. They ran forward and pinned my arms and legs. When they knew I couldn't move, Kadaj plunged the needle into my arm. I screamed and immediately found myself muffled by a hand. 'Someone please help me' I thought as my vision blurred with tears and I fought back as much as I could. 'I need help, Cloud…' Why did I think of him? 'Cloud, help me' I thought as if trying to send the message out telepathically. I could feel the blood drain from my arm. 'Cloud!'

They removed the needle and released me. I slumped against the wall behind me. "Now, for my reunion" said Kadaj as Loz and Yazoo stood in front of me. I flinched as he inserted the needle into his own arm and injected my crimson blood into himself.

'No' I thought. I silently awaited the return of Sephiroth. Five minutes passed but nothing happened.

"Why doesn't it work?" he yelled.

"Maybe because I'm not Mother" I said. There was a moment of anger and confusion in the crowd that gave me a small chance to run. I leapt up and took off, my slightly blurry vision making it hard to keep track of where I was going.

"Get her!" I heard Kadaj yell. I ran faster but I couldn't see and my foot caught a rock. In a matter of moments I fell to the ground and skidded into the water. I was defeated, my arms and legs were too stiff and tired to move. The one they called Loz yanked me up out of the water and threw me over his shoulder. "She's useless to us now. Take her and throw her somewhere. I don't care where" said Kadaj.

I was loaded onto the back of a motorcycle before I passed out.

I opened my eyes slightly as the noise of the city filled my ears. 'How long has it been?' I wondered as I looked up at the dark sky. If it was still dark, had any time passed or had I quickly awoken? My hair was wet and cold my body was okay. I felt stiff and tired, unable to move, but at least I was alive and awake. My arm hurt. They had taken the blood from my left arm, my bad one.

"Hey! Isn't that ShinRa's daughter?" I heard someone say. I recognized that voice. Footsteps ran over to my body. My head was lifted into someone's lap and I looked up into the face of Reno.

"Hey, Reno" I said, my voice more hoarse than I had expected.

"Hey, don't speak. You look like you're in pretty bad shape" he said. "We're going to take you back to Seventh Heaven. Just hold on." I felt my body being lifted onto a motorcycle. They started it and as we went along, I became more awake and aware and soon I could move my arms and fingers again and then I gained more control of my body. As I regained awareness I suddenly realized that I was sitting in front of whoever was driving. I was startled by this realization and I sat up and moved back, placing my hand on the driver's leg on accident.

"Whoa there" said the driver as he took one hand off of the steering and put it on my stomach to steady me. "It's okay" he added. I knew it was Reno.

"I don't like these things" I said.

"Then I take it that was your angry cat" he said. I gulped and nodded. "Don't worry, I won't let you fall" he said as he tightened his grip on me.

"It's not falling that bothers me. I ride Atlatl without saddle or harness" I said. "It's the fact that so very many things can go wrong."

"Don't worry, we don't have far to go" he said as he took a left. The sudden action scared me and I gasped and grabbed his arm around me. He chuckled as he held me tighter and sped up. I closed my eyes and curled up a bit but soon we were stopping. I felt him get off behind me and I opened my eyes. "Come on" he said as he took my hands and pulled me off of the bike. The moment my feet hit the ground, my legs collapsed under my weight. "Whoa!" he said as he used my hands to pull me back up and then he put an arm under my legs and picked me up bridal-style. "You're not too steady yet" he said. "But you're not heavy so I'm not complaining."

"My recovery usually travels from my head down, but I recover quickly" I said.

"It's fine, don't rush your recovery. Who did this to you?" he asked.

"Kadaj and his gang. They dragged me to the Forgotten Capital" I said. Rude opened the door, it was the first time I noticed his presence. "They also had the orphans" I said, remembering Denzel.

Reno had walked me up the stairs and to a room at the top. He placed me on the bed and helped me sit up. "We were out looking for the kids when we found you, but now we know where they are."

"How long was I gone?" I asked.

"Let's just say you disappeared yesterday" he said. "You look horrible. What did they do to you?"

"They hurt me, okay?" I said. I didn't really want to tell them what had happened or about my fear. "I need to change my clothes, they're dirty. Can you get my bag from Atlatl?"

"The big cat?" he asked.

"Yeah" I said. "Call her by her name. She knows I only give her name to people I trust."

"I wish I would have known that" he grumbled.

"Knock before entering when you come back" I said. He nodded and walked out. I used my torso to pull my legs over the side of the bed. Carefully, I leaned forward and put my feet on the ground and then allowed some pressure on them. My legs didn't give out this time so I stood, a bit unsteady at first, and began to unbuckle my dress. As I did this, I thought back to my previous encounter. Cloud had probably wanted to know where I was. Why had I thought of him when I was afraid? I shrugged it off and continued undressing until I was only in my undergarments and then studied my arm and leg. Maybe I could start passing it off for a tattoo. I looked out the window at the city. What was taking Reno so long?


	4. Chapter 4: Secret Sickness

**A/N - I don't own Final Fantasy or any of its characters or ideas.**

So far, Cloud's day hadn't been the best. The night before, he had found Tifa at Aerith's church. She was hurt and only because conscious for a short amount of time. Cloud had fallen victim to his geostigma shortly after finding her and fallen unconscious. He had woken up to find that she was still unconscious in a bed near him. It was daylight and Reno and Rude had brought the two of them back to the bar. What had made matters worse was that not only were the children missing but Fayte was as well.

Cloud stared out the window. Tifa still hadn't woken up. He worried more about Fayte than anything. 'Why do I care?' he thought. 'I told her to come here and she couldn't wait so she got herself into trouble.' Still, he worried about something that he felt he shouldn't care about. He had only known her for two days… and the note… was it fake?

_Cloud, _

_ I'm going out for a walk because the bar was closed when I got there and I didn't want to break and enter. I'm leaving Atlatl and my stuff. I should be okay on my own. Hopefully I'll get back before you do._

_Fayte_

Sure she was strong but something could still happen and something did. Reno and Rude had gone out I search of the kids and Fayte earlier that morning. They hadn't been back in a while and he began to wonder when they would come back and if they found Fayte.

A moment passed as he stared out the window and then Tifa suddenly stirred and woke up. She sat up a bit and Cloud looked to her. "Reno and Rude are out looking" he said.

Tifa looked away from him. "You have geostigma, don't you?" she said. "You're going to give up and die, is that it?" When Cloud didn't respond, she brought her knee up and hugged it a bit. "So it is."

"There's no cure" said Cloud.

"Yeah, but that's not stopping Denzel, is it?" she exclaimed. "Don't run! Let's fight it together. We can help each other, I know we can." She got excited as she spoke but Cloud's lack of response once again dampened her mood. "I guess that only works for real families" she said.

Cloud's eyes remained fixed upon his lap. "Tifa… I'm not fit to help anyone… not my family, not my friends, not Fayte. Nobody" he said.

"How do you know Fayte?" she asked.

"She helped me fight off Kadaj and his gang" he answered. "Then I found out she was Rufus ShinRa's adopted daughter and that she's an ex-SOLDIER and she knew Zack. I understand her because we have similar pasts… but I can't protect her."

Tifa looked away from Cloud. "Dilly dally, shilly shally" she said. Cloud looked up in shock but didn't say anything. He also didn't see Reno slip quietly into the room. "Dilly dally, shilly shally" repeated Tifa.

"I think she wants you to move on, man" said Reno. They both looked over in surprise at his appearance.

Tifa quickly moved forward towards Reno "Did you find them?"

Reno stood with his arms crossed. "No, only an interesting and familiar witness. She says Kadaj's gang took the kids."

"She?" asked Cloud.

"Yeah, Fayte. She was kidnapped by them, too" said Reno.

"Where were they? Is she okay?" asked Cloud.

"They were at the Forgotten City. We didn't find her there though. She was unconscious in an alleyway. Right now she's in the next room over. She's awake and moving again" replied Rude.

"What did they do to her?" asked Cloud.

"I don't know. She would only tell me that they hurt her" said Reno.

Cloud looked away thoughtfully for a moment and then back at Reno. "Go" he said. He stood and looked at Reno and Rude. "I have to talk to Rufus."

"Stop running!" yelled Tifa. "I know, even if you fund the kids you might not be able to help them. Maybe something will happen that can never unhappen. That scares you, doesn't it? But you need to think about now, really take it in! Look at you! You think you've got it so damn hard!" Reno shifted uncomfortably. This wasn't really the conversation to be in. "Well, you hate being alone, so let people in! Sure, you don't answer your phone, but I don't see you throwing it away either! If you need information, talk to Fayte. They kidnapped her. She must know something. You want to talk to her anyway, don't you? When Reno said they hurt her I was sure I had seen concern in your eyes and things like that don't happen with you. You really care about her, so don't push her to the side!"

"You go, the base is all yours" said Reno and he and Rude left the room.

"What is it? A memory or us?" Tifa asked Cloud.

I closed my eyes for a moment. Reno was taking so long.

"So it didn't work" a male voice said behind me. I turned quickly and the room around me turned white. Zack was standing with his arms crossed. "I've never seen you like this" he said. I looked down and blushed as I realized I was practically naked.

"You've walked in on me before" I said.

"I mean your left side" he said as he walked over and ran his hand down my arm. "It really does look painful."

"It is" I said. "If I die, will it go away?"

"I hate it when you talk like that. People still need you. Cloud needs you" he said. "I know that you don't think you need him, but you need him just as much. You thought of him when you were in danger. Maybe you should depend on him. You already want to, even if you don't admit it."

"I did think of him but I don't need him. I can't let anyone get too close, for I may die soon" I said. The light faded back to the regular room. The door was at my back and startled me when it opened without warning. I only turned my head and looked at who it was.

"I thought Reno would have told you to knock, Cloud" I said, crossing my arms.

"This was outside the door" he said as he threw my bag past me and onto my bed.

"Is that all?" I asked. He still stood in the room as if thinking. "Well?" I said as I looked at him again, keeping my body so he couldn't see my left arm. After Zack had so suddenly popped into my head, I wasn't so flustered by my lack of clothing. He seemed to be bothered by it, though. His eyes were fixated on the ground. I looked away.

"What did they do to you?" he asked.

"They hurt me."

"How?"

"You don't need to know any more" I retorted.

"I need to know what they did to you and what they wanted. I need to know if it worked" he said.

"All you need to know is that hey hurt me and that it didn't work."

"What were they trying to do?" he asked.

"I don't want to talk about it" I said.

"If you didn't want to talk about it then why didn't you stay here in the first place?" he asked, getting more frustrated. A bit of force showed in his voice.

"I explained it in the note" I said.

"You know bad people are running around! Why didn't you take a weapon?"

"They grabbed me and drugged me from behind."

"You could have struggled."

"I'm not strong enough."

"At least look at me when I'm talking to you!" he yelled as he grabbed me and spun me around. At first he was angry but then his expression changed to shock. "Geostigma" was all he said. He withdrew his hands, the one on my left arm first.

I took a step back. "Yes, I have geostigma" I glared at him angrily. "It's why I can tell you that I don't have much time left."

"I've never seen someone who has it so bad" he said.

"I was one of the first" I said as I walked over to my bag and pulled out a jar of medicine and a rag.

"There's so much of it" he said.

"It started on my neck and spread from there to the entire left side of my body" I said as I wiped my geostigma infested arm and leg with the rag. I also took a moment to wipe down my side and chest and then move up to my neck. As I wiped my neck, more of the geostigma was revealed.

"There's more?" he asked. I looked at him and nodded. My eyes wandered to the rag and I held it out to him.

"Take it" I said. He reached out and took it carefully and then looked at me. "I can't see my face right now so it never works well for me to clean it without a mirror." He reached out timidly and pressed the cloth to the left side of my face.

"What's on this rag?" he suddenly asked as he gently dabbed my face.

"It's medicine" I said. "It numbs the geostigma and cleans it. It's also the only way to take off the makeup on my face." He looked taken aback as he revealed the first of the geostigma on my cheek. "My makeup and clothing are waterproof because it is painful for water to touch my geostigma."

He continued his gentle caress of my cheek until he hit the edge of the geostigma and then moved up the side of my face to my temple. I tilted my head into his hand, enjoying the painless touch. 'It's just the medicine' I reminded myself. He was being very gentle and I liked the feeling because no one had touched me in so long.

Suddenly, he stopped and handed me the rag. "It's bad" was all he could say. He finally got the full view of my geostigma. It spread from my ankle, up my body, as far as the middle of my chest and down my entire arm. It then went back up my neck to the left side of my face and over my nose a little. The highest part of it extended up over my forehead and to the middle of it.

He suddenly reached over with his left hand and took my left. As he picked my arm up, I caught a whiff of geostigma and I knew it wasn't mine because I couldn't smell my own. "You have a bruise" he said, looking at the skin on the inside of my elbow.

"I was struggling when they used the needle to draw my blood" I said.

"Needle?" he asked.

"Yes, needle. They took some of my blood and injected it into Kadaj for their reunion or whatever and it must not have worked because they got really mad and I collapsed from blood loss. Next thing I knew, it was who knows how many hours later and Reno was leading me onto his motorcycle" I said.

"Why wouldn't you tell me before?" he asked as he squeezed my hand, reminding me painfully that he was still holding it.

"Because it's embarrassing. I'm afraid of needles, Cloud. Ever since the procedures to make me a Jenova clone. They did terrible things. Needles felt like fire to me and they would strap me down and… I was so scared" I said. I closed my eyes and tilted my head to the ground in my moment of weakness. Cloud suddenly wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to his chest. My eyes widened and I stiffened up. The last person to have hugged me was Zack.

"Sorry" he said as he felt my unease and withdrew. My mind resumed its function and as he tried to move away, I reached out and took his left hand. He cared about me and suffered the same way I did. My mind raced to find the words to thank him but something else came out.

"You have it, too" I whispered as I pulled his hand towards me.

"How did you know?" he asked.

"I can both sense and smell geostigma" I said as I slowly loosened each finger of his glove and then removed it.

"What are you doing?" he asked as I pulled his sleeve up his arm.

"Let me take away your pain" I whispered like I was in a trance. My lips met the soft skin of his arm and pain flowed through me. I gently kissed up his arm, feeling his pain added to my own. Our geostigma was on the same arm. My own geostigma was pounding and for a moment, I felt faint. When I reached the top of his arm, I grew dizzy and clung to his arm, leaning my head on his shoulder as his pain burned me. When I regained my composure, I looked up a single black tear escaped my left eye.

He looked at his arm in wonder. "What did you do?" he asked.

"When I kiss someone's wound, I can take the pain they feel and make it my own" I gasped. I was still adjusting to the pain when he suddenly picked it up and placed me on my bed. He picked up the rag and flipped it to a clean side taking the medicine and putting more on. "What?" I asked but he ignored me and ran the rag down my arm. I hissed in pain when he pressed down but then the pain slowly went away as he continued to rub up and down my arm. Neither of us said anything for a while. When I realized how very intimate the moment had become, I turned my head and looked away from Cloud. What would the others think? If one of them walked in right now and saw us the way we were, they would really have something to say.

"Why did you do that?" he asked, breaking the silence that had enveloped us.

"Why are you doing what you're doing now?" I responded pointedly.

"I don't know" said Cloud.

"I think that you care" I said. "Now that I think about it, I do too." I looked back over at him with determination in my eyes. These people, although the time I knew them was short, make me feel as if someone cared, as if living one more day wouldn't be quite so painful. I could help them. "I know what he meant now" I said.

"Who?" asked Cloud.

"Zack" I replied. "He said that I'd meet someone who would need me. Sometimes, he comes to me in my sleep or when I'm not expecting it and tells me things like that. Maybe, I'm crazy…"

"Maybe you're not" said Cloud. "It's not impossible."

"Maybe I just want to see him again. There's so much regret and remorse in my heart tied to his death" I said. "I always wonder what would have happened if I hadn't run away. I was strong enough to stop Sephiroth on my own. I always think that if I had stayed I would have defeated Sephiroth and no one would have had to suffer" I turned my head slightly to meet his eyes. "I loved him, Cloud" I admitted. "I really did but I never told him. Sometimes, I really wish I had."

"I guess we have more in common than we thought" he said. "I lost someone close to me, too."

"Is it really our fault?" I asked. "Did we kill them?"

"I don't know" said Cloud. "But I want to be forgiven."

I sighed and let my head nod limply to the side. "I forgive you, Cloud" I said.

He took my good hand and gave it a squeeze. "I forgive you, too… but you know it isn't what we need." I nodded in response as he picked his glove up off of the floor and put it on. "I'm going out to find them" he said.

"I'm coming with you!" I said as I sat up quickly. A shooting pain filled my head and I passed my hand to it.

"No, you're not" he said as he placed a hand on my shoulder and pressed me back down onto the bed. "Please rest" he said softly as he placed a blanket over me and put the rag and medicine away. "You're in no condition to fight."

I didn't argue, which was rare for me. He had an effect on me that no one else had. Maybe my father could have done it, ShinRa, not my real father, and Zack would but he never really tried. "Cloud" I said as he turned away from me. He looked back and stared, waiting for me to say whatever it was I needed to say. "I need to put my makeup back on. My face hurts."

"Should I get you a mirror?" he asked.

"I was hoping you could do it for me quickly" I said. He looked scared for a moment. "Don't worry" I said. "It goes on easy and covers pretty well."

"Okay" he said, rather unsure of himself.

"It's in a tube in my bag" I said. He reached in my bag and pulled out a small tube of beige paste. "You can use the other rag in my bag."

He pulled it out and walked over. I sat up and took it, putting some of the cream on the rag and handing it back to him. "Start on my cheek" I said as he took it and pressed it to my face. I closed my eyes as he slowly rubbed it on. The pain subsided a little now that the air wasn't hitting it. He rubbed the cloth against my forehead and down the side of my face. It was an incredibly unfamiliar feeling to have someone touch my face, yet I didn't mind. He went over the bridge of my nose and then over the rest of my lower cheek and to my jaw. As his hand then traveled down my neck I came to my senses and stopped him.

"That's good, thank you" I said and I took the makeup, medicine and rags and put them in my bag. I placed the bag at my bedside and lay down. "Be careful, Cloud" I said.

He nodded and walked out the door, closing it softly behind him. I reached up and touched my face where he had so softly caressed it moments before. Was I falling in love with Cloud? He was handsome and we seemed to have so much in common but did that mean I could love him? I barely knew him.

'Don't die, Cloud' was my last thought before I drifted off to sleep. 'I need to know.'


	5. Chapter 5: Forest Fight and Failure

Cloud sped through the crystalline trees on Fenrir, his sights set on the base, the Forgotten City. Now that Kadaj had the kids, who knew what he was doing to them. He could even be doing things to them that were as terrible as he had done to Fayte, although what he actually did to Fayte was still in question. At least she was somewhere safe, now. Cloud had instructed Tifa and the others not to disturb her. He figured she wanted her geostigma to remain a secret as well. It was hard to explain. He had only known the woman for a few days at the most and yet he seemed attached to her. They had so much in common and so much at stake. Maybe that was why he felt like he could trust her and he cared.

As he drove forward, the trees seemed to begin to blend together, their tame glow becoming blinding until Cloud was thrown into a world of white light. "Huh?" he said as he straightened himself up into a standing position. He stared forward for a moment before flowers appeared beneath his feet and a young, brunette girl appeared back to back with him.

"You came" she said in a content voice. "Even though you're about to break." She placed a hand on his cloth-covered, geostigma-ridden arm. "That's a good sign." She removed her hand and held her hands together in front of her. "So, why did you come?"

Cloud didn't look back. "I think I want to be forgiven… more than anything" he said.

"Something you and Fayte have in common, but the question for both of you is: by who?" she stated.

Shock filled Cloud and he began to turn around but found himself back on Fenrir. He seemed a bit confused but he was quickly removed from that state by gunfire. Swerving to dodge, he saw Kadaj and his gang firing upon him. He opened the sides of Fenrir to take out some buster sword parts, but as he neared them, Kadaj pulled out his blade and twirled his hand in the air. Suddenly, all the children dropped from the trees. With a jerk, he caused his bike to slide out from under him and he fell off to avoid the children, his buster sword leaving his hands.

Kadaj walked forward and leaned down as Loz stopped the bike with his foot. "I'm glad you could make it!" Kadaj said.

Cloud met his eyes "I only came for the kids."

Kadaj ignored him and began to walk around him, speaking to the children. "See this man? He's our big brother… but alas," he came to a stop in front of and pointed his double bladed sword at him. "In our happy flock, he's what you call a black sheep."

Kadaj raised his blade and turned away from Cloud. He was going to come back to attack when Marlene called out "Cloud!" The distraction allowed Cloud to grab his own blade and take a swing at Kadaj, who easily dodged and flipped to a nearby boulder.

As Cloud brought his blade up, a bullet deflected off of it, bringing his attention to Yazoo, who was shooting from a distance. Loz took the opportunity to charge, using his abilities to dodge his own brother's bullets as he ran towards Cloud. His body lit up as he approached Cloud, leaping to slam his fist into the man. Cloud spun to the side and blocked a couple more bullets before deflecting another kick from Loz. He blocked and dodged Loz some more as he continued to glow and strike at him. His attempts to strike back at the glowing man were futile and a hard hit caused him to flip back and skid to a stop.

Loz smirked and Cloud jumped forward to attack him again. As he approached him, Loz flipped on his back and propelled Cloud over and away from him with a kick. Cloud hit the ground on his hands and knees, dropping his buster sword again. He looked up and quickly retrieved the weapon only to be attacked by Yazoo. After he blocked the first swing, Yazoo kicked him in the chest and fired at him, point blank. Cloud blocked each shot and then flipped to the right and swung his blade at him. Yazoo blocked a swing and then stepped on his blade. He ran up it like a ramp while still evading Cloud and then proceeded to counter-attack.

Loz took advantage of Cloud's distraction and slammed his fist into the ground to send a wave of earth towards him. Yazoo lowered his weapon and smiled before back-flipping over the moving earth. He fired some more and Cloud deflected them before he was forced to face the approaching wave. The blade he had raised behind him became charged and he slammed in to the ground and sent his own wave of blue energy hurtling towards the other wave. The two collided in an explosion and stopped where they struck.

Cloud looked slowly up only to find Loz in his face. Before he could block, Loz punched him and sent him backwards and then gave Yazoo, who used him as a springboard, a boost after Cloud. Yazoo lashed out at Cloud as Loz joined the attack, shoving off Cloud and flipping over Yazoo as he attacked again. Cloud dodged Yazoo and leapt high in the air to avoid Loz once more.

Loz threw Yazoo up to meet Cloud in the air. He fired at him again before pushing off of him and shooting some more. One of the bullets hit Cloud's blade, causing it to fly out of his hand and bury its point in a nearby tree. He landed close to it and ran over to the tree, swinging up and landing on top of his sword. A laugh escaped Loz as he punched the base of the tree Cloud was on. As it began to fall, Yazoo walked down it towards Cloud, shooting as he did. Cloud blocked the bullets and removed his blade as Loz smashed upward through it at his feet.

Cloud spun and blocked both attackers, he and Yazoo pushed off each other. He landed on the trunk of a nearby tree and quickly assembled his buster sword into one blade. Looking up a bit, his eyes met Kadaj, who was still on the ground. He pushed off the tree aiming at Kadaj but being easily blocked and held in the air by Kadaj's multiple following slashes. Kadaj forced him back up into the air and followed, his final strike incapacitating Cloud.

Before Kadaj could strike again, a red mantle flew out of the trees and struck him. He landed on his feet and Cloud landed in a heap on the ground a short distance away. Cloud's cellphone fell out of his pocket and bounced into a nearby pool of water. The mantle flew down and surrounded Cloud. Bullets fired from inside the mantle caused Kadaj to swing his blades in a circular motion to block. Loz charged and Yazoo fired upon the mantle but to no avail. The bullets did no damage and Loz was too slow. After picking up Cloud and his weapon, the mantle quickly disappeared into the trees again. Kadaj scoffed, defeated.

The mantle had taken them to a safer place by a small lake. Cloud was sitting on the ground staring at his lap. "See? I knew I'd be no help" he said. He looked over to a man standing several feet away, owner of the mantle. "Vincent, what do you know about this?" he asked.

"I come here often" the handsome man said, lifting his crimson gaze and throwing aside a bit of his red mantle. He had long black hair and cloth around his head. On his left hand was a gauntlet and he looked as if he was in his twenties. "I've seen what Kadaj's group is doing" he added as he walked over and grabbed Cloud's geostigma arm. "The stigma, it's a symptom of alien matter infesting the body. The body tries to eliminate it and overcompensates" he stood from Cloud's side and walked in front of him and over to a tree. "Inside our bodies is a current like the life stream. That current is what fights off any malevolent intruders." He turned to face Cloud again.

Cloud had looked back down. "What do you mean by intruder?" he asked.

"The Sephiroth gene" answered Vincent. "Jenova's mimetic legacy, call it what you want."

"You're well informed" said Cloud.

"Tseng and Elena; they were brought here half dead" said Vincent. "They must have been brutally tortured. I did what I could to save them… but well, you'll see."

"Tortured?" asked Cloud.

"They had it coming" replied Vincent. "They got their hands on Jenova's head."

Cloud looked up. "Then when Kadaj says he's looking for Mother…"

"Heaven's dark harbinger - the calamity, Jenova" interrupted Vincent. "If they wanted to, they could recreate Sephiroth."

"What did they use Fayte for, then?" Cloud asked himself.

"Fayte?" Vincent inquired.

"A girl. I met her a couple of days ago. She has quite a history" Cloud said as he looked down again. "She's the adopted daughter of Rufus ShinRa, she was also a SOLDIER, the only female one, she told me she's the closest thing they ever came to recreating Jenova. She also has geostigma. Kadaj kidnapped her and dropped her off in the city, but she couldn't tell me what they were trying to do."

"Fayte… as in Project Fayte?" said Vincent.

"I don't know. You tell me" said Cloud.

"The description of the girl fits" said Vincent. "She must be around twenty now."

"How do you know?" Cloud asked.

"If she is who I think she is, she's supposed to be a myth now. Very few ever heard of the project. It was called Project Fayte, more commonly known as Project F but also known as Project Female and Project Failure."

"Failure?" asked Cloud.

"Yes, you see, ShinRa's adopted daughter was dying so she gave permission for them to perform gruesome experiments trying to make a better Sephiroth. When she came out, she was better but she suddenly ran away. The SOLDIER in charge of her claimed that he hadn't seen her disappear. The project was named Failure and shut down. They claimed women were too unstable" explained Vincent.

"Then what did Kadaj want with her blood?" Cloud wondered aloud.

"Her blood?" asked Vincent.

"They took some from her" said Cloud.

"She's very like Jenova, if the reports are right. Perhaps they saw her as a substitute for Jenova's head" suggested Vincent.

"I don't think it worked then" Cloud said. He looked back down. "Kadaj… what is he?"

"I'd rather not know" replied Vincent.

A sudden rustle in the bushes caught their attention. Cloud quickly stood and grabbed his blade. Vincent placed a hand on the handle of his gun. They both stood ready to fight as the bushes moved some more and suddenly a small girl ran out. She ran straight into Cloud, panting as Cloud placed a hand on her shoulder, and looked up at him.

"Marlene!" he said in shock.

"Cloud" she said as she caught her breath. "Denzel, and Tifa!"

"Tifa is alright" Cloud said calmly.

"I wanna talk to her!" demanded Marlene.

Cloud searched his pockets for his phone, unknowing that he had dropped it. When he didn't find it, Marlene turned and looked at Vincent.

"May I?" she asked. Vincent lifted his mantle to show he had none. "You don't have a phone?" she asked, shocked at the revelation. He dropped it, not offering explanation.

"Vincent" said Cloud. "Will you bring Marlene to Tifa? I'm going to go see ShinRa and get a few answers."

"I can't do that" Vincent shook his head.

"But, I" began Cloud.

"Forget it, Cloud" said Marlene, suddenly taking a step away from him. "Why don't you ever pay attention to us?" She ran over to Vincent and hid under his mantle.

Cloud's face showed shock "Marlene, please give me some time" he said. "There's battle to be fought but it's not as simple as just fighting, understand?"

"No, I don't!" she yelled.

"Cloud, are you sure this is about fighting?" asked Vincent. Cloud thought back to his conversation with Tifa.

'Dilly dally, shilly shally. Isn't it time you did the fighting?' Aerith's voice echoed in his head.

He opened his eyes. "Are sins ever forgiven?" he asked.

"I've never tried" said Vincent.

"You mean… never tried" he said, lost in his thoughts. He suddenly looked up. "Marlene, let's go."

Marlene peeked out from under the mantle and smiled, giving a big nod before running to join Cloud.

"Well, I'm gonna try" said Cloud as he turned away. "I'll phone in the verdict."

As Cloud's phone sank, the messages played.

"It's me, Reeve. How's it going? I saw your flyer. How do you ever stay in business? Heh, you never change, Cloud. If it's alright I was thinking about helping you out, but I guess I'll call back another time."

"Surprise! It's me, Yuffie. Fill me in, okay?"

"Survey is done so I should be able to see Marlene soon. You let her know, all right, Spikey?"

The phone hit the bottom and died slowly as Aerith's voice filled the void. "I never blamed you, not once. You came for me, that's all that matters."


	6. Chapter 6: Confess

It was still dark when I opened my eyes. I was more rested than I had ever been. The pain in my body was gone but something was different. After getting dressed, I checked my makeup to see Cloud had actually done pretty well. I strapped a knife to my inner thigh in case I decided to go out again. I walked down to the bar and filled a glass with water.

"Fayte?"

I turned to see Tifa. "Oh hey," I said.

"You're up early" she stated. "Couldn't sleep?"

"No, I actually slept pretty well" I replied. "I feel much better."

"Cloud seemed worried about you" she said with a sigh. She walked over to the bar and began to wipe down glasses.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"He actually showed emotion. He didn't seem so cut off from the world when you were mentioned. I think you brought him out of that shell he spends so much time in" she said.

I thought it over. I didn't know Cloud so I didn't know what she was talking about, but I did notice jealousy in her voice. 'No…' I thought. "Do you like Cloud?" I blurted. Her jaw dropped and she seemed to enter a state of shock. "Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking" I said, putting up my hands in a show of submission.

"No, it's okay" she said. "How did you know?"

"Wild guess" I shrugged. I lifted my glass and took a sip.

"Do you like Cloud?" she asked. The question was sudden and unexpected and caused me to spit out my mouthful of water. As I brought a hand to my mouth, she muttered, "Sorry."

"No, I just wasn't expecting it" I said. "But I really don't know."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"It's not him as much as it is me" I said. "I guess I'm afraid of getting attached to anyone. The last man I tried to love died. Now, I'm going to die any day. I don't want to leave anyone with that burden."

"Now you sound just like him" she said.

"I do?" I asked.

"You do" she concluded. We continued what we were doing in silence for a short amount of time. "You said you didn't know" she spoke, breaking the calm. "Well… maybe you do."

"I'm sorry, do what, exactly?" I questioned, having completely lost her.

"Maybe you do like him" she said.

"Tell me why" I said somewhat sarcastically.

"Well, you say you don't know but then you make a comment about the 'last man you tried to love' and say you are afraid of commitment. That sounds more like denial to me" she said.

"Wouldn't it bother you if I got with Cloud?" I asked.

"Well, yeah…" she admitted. "But it's a hell of a lot better than seeing him alone."

"Then you'd better keep him away from me or he'll be miserable and alone again soon enough" I sighed.

"Why are you so hellbent on dying soon?" she snapped. "I may not have known you for long, but I still consider you as a friend and I don't want you to die. I didn't want to admit it to myself either but Cloud cares about you! It would really hurt him to see you die!"

My eyes widened. Cloud cared about me? Why? We hadn't any reason to really care about each other. There couldn't have been a real connection there. "Speaking of Cloud, where is he anyway?" I said both acting aloof to her outburst and trying to change the subject at the same time.

"I think you care about him, too" she accused, her tone bothered me.

I turned and shot her a nasty glare, about to come back with a nasty comment when something caught my nose. The smell of geostigma rushed in and weighed heavily on the air. "Do you smell that?" I asked absently, forgetting our would-be-fight.

"Smell what?" she asked, my question confusing her.

I barely heard her as I realized it was the scent of the orphans, but one scent, now distinct to me, was missing. "He's not with them" I muttered.

"Who?" she asked but I didn't hear her this time. My nose was screaming to go check this smell out.

"The geostigma is back, I think" I finally said. "Or the orphans and children have returned."

"What makes you say that?" she asked.

"The nose knows" I answered with a smile. "I can smell geostigma miles away, but then they could be miles away."

"Can you tell where it is coming from?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No, but I can tell that Cloud's not with them."

"Can you guess?" she asked.

"No, but Atlatl can" I realized. I set the glass I was holding down and smiled again. "Want to go look?"

"There's not much else to do and I'm worried, so yes" she answered.

I shrugged a bit and gestured for her to follow me. We went out to the small garage and Atlatl stood. "Where are we going?" she asked as I strapped on my belt and buster sword.

"Do you smell the geostigma?" I asked her. Tifa stared at me like I was crazy, talking to the large cat. Atlatl nodded as I pet her back. "Tifa" I said as I held out my hand. "I'll help you on." She nodded and I took her hand to balance her as I hoisted her onto Atlatl's back. After she was steady, I leapt up in front of her. "Put your hands on my shoulders if you need to" I instructed her. "I'll tell Atlatl to be careful."

"How do you tell her?" she asked.

"Telepathy" I answered. "She's a friend, we don't want to get her thrown off and killed so be careful" I added to Atlatl. She growled her acknowledgement and took off at a trot. Tifa let out a squeak of terror and her hands moved to my shoulders. It made me want to laugh. Silly first time riders.

We rode for what seemed like hours. It probably was hours, as it got quite a bit brighter out. Atlatl took us on a grand tour of the city, not finding anything, just going. I figured it was payback for being locked up so long. Tifa had been completely silent but she seemed to get more comfortable as time went on. We continued to see nothing but as we came closer to the monument ShinRa had built, we could hear a crowd.

Atlatl threw me a sideways glance and I nodded. She turned us towards it and ran. When we got there, I was hit strongly with the scent of geostigma and we found an angry crowd… and the children! They were in a circle around the monument I recognized at Meteor, keeping the crowd back. Tifa and I got down. Before we walked into the crowd I instructed Atlatl to hide and come if I called her.

The crowd was furious and frantic, and I soon saw why. Loz and Yazoo were in the middle with long chains attached to the monument.

"Denzel was with them, wasn't he?" Tifa suddenly asked.

"Yeah" I said. I sniffed the air and caught his scent. "He's here, too."

"He must be in the circle then" she said. I nodded in agreement. We split up and entered the crowd. People were everywhere, yelling.

"Hey, what are you doin'?" one man yelled over the crowd.

"How do you justify this?" yelled another. Loz and Yazoo ignored him and looked away from him. "Hey, look at me when I'm talking to you!" he yelled again.

I saw the two men look at each other and Loz nodded. Yazoo suddenly released the black demon-like creatures that had originally been used against Cloud. "Shit" was all that came out of my mouth and I ran forward through the now panicking and screaming crowd. Tifa wasn't far away now. She suddenly ran over to a boy in the ring of kids. I immediately recognized Denzel and ran over to join him.

As I ran, one of the monsters charged me. It slammed into my side and sent me flying. I tucked and rolled to avoid its claws as it chased after me. 'Guess I have no choice' I thought as I pulled out my buster sword.

I expertly swung my blade at the monster, it glimmered and whistled as it twirled through the air. Most of my movements were blocks, this one seemed to be especially smart. I leapt over its head and turned, striking at its back and then as it turned I went to slice its jaw but someone beat me to it, smashing its head in with a rod. I looked over to see Reno and Rude.

"Hey, beautiful" said Reno. "You look a lot better."

"You shameless flirt" I smirked.

"You know it" he said. "So, what's going on here?" he asked.

"Ask them" I said as I pointed to Loz and Yazoo.

The two men at the monument were preparing to pull it down when when we walked over. "And what are we up to?" Reno asked. They turned to face our group and smirked as we stopped.

Yazoo gestured to the statue "We know Mother is here."

"Oh yeah?" said Reno.

"Yeah" answered Loz. He nodded to the statue behind him. "This, uh, thing – monument thing – ShinRa made it."

"Oh no, you're just too clever" said Reno, tapping his head.

Rude pointed at them " Except, you're wrong."

"And wherever she is, we just don't know" added Reno. The looked at each other and chuckled.

"What?" Yazoo said, stepping forward. "The peons aren't trusted?"

Reno growled and then looked back and forth between them and Rude, who looked like he was choking.

"I guess they don't trust the daughter either" Yazoo added, nodding to me. My jaw dropped. He had taken that one step too far. A monster popped up behind me and I didn't even look as I sliced it in half. Reno and Rude stared drop jawed at me for a moment before I leapt over their heads at the men.

My buster sword extended, I ran at the men but something caught my nose.

"Father?" I asked as I stopped and turned to look at the building I thought it was coming from. A bright shining light appeared on one of the upper floors and was suddenly launched, like a rocket, into the sky. I immediately recognized it as a summon and watched, partially in horror as the water in the clouds above us swirled and twisted and formed a huge, ugly monster. It soared down towards the city and landed next to the monument. Leaping up onto the monument, it let out a primal scream.

Reno stopped n the middle of his charge and hit Rude in the head on the backswing. His face became the picture of shock as he looked upon the creature. Rude stood up, nearly un-phased by Reno's hit and adjusted his glasses.

"Oh boy" said Reno. "Heh… hello…"

'Double shit' I thought as I looked at the creature with a shocked look that rivaled that of the two men in front of me.

"Oh no" said Reno.

"Bahamut-sin" I whispered as they took off in the opposite direction, Reno nearly clobbering Rude again.

Yazoo and Loz chased after them, seeming to forget me. I watched as Reno and Rude grabbed some of the nearby children. Tifa was now crouched over Denzel, using her body as a shield. Bahamut-sin lifted its wings and began to lift from the platform of the statue. Its red eyes glowed as a blue light appeared in its mouth and began to grow larger.

I slammed my buster sword into the ground and held on tight just in time for Bahamut-sin to unleash the stored up energy in a ball and blast the monument. People went flying but I remained anchored with my buster sword. After the blast dissipated, it screamed again. There was burning debris everywhere.

Loz and Yazoo had flown past me as well and they were now after Reno and Rude. I watched as Yazoo jumped onto a building and Reno climbed up after him. Loz and Rude were engaged in a fist fight. The two of them seemed to be fighting a losing battle. Loz threw Rude and Yazoo landed a nasty kick to the side of Reno's face. As Rude got up, a huge sign fell on his head and then Reno.

As they stood, Reno stepped on Rude's glasses. He looked hurt and shocked but he pulled out another pair as he stood. I almost laughed at that but I was soon caught in my own ordeal. Five of the shadow monsters surrounded me. It was also then that I saw the shock wave had knocked out Tifa. Bahamut-sin began to dig through the rubble of the statue as the creatures attacked me. Before they could leap on me, I jumped up above their circle and then brought my sword down on all of their heads simultaneously.

I ran to Tifa and Denzel. As I approached, Denzel woke up and pushed Tifa off of him. "Tifa?" I heard him ask. When she didn't awaken he yelled, "Son of a bitch!"

I chased Denzel and nearly grabbed him when a large man stepped in. He yelled as his arm became a machine gun and he shot at Sin. Tifa stood behind us and the man turned to Denzel. "You look after Mom!" he said.

"Barret" said Tifa.

"Marlene better be safe, huh!" he yelled before going after Sin.

A cat riding the back of a red dog-like animal ran past us, too. The dog jumped and latched onto Sin as Barret fired more. I watched as they were flung off Sin and hit the ground as Barret fired. A shiruken hit it in the head as it charged Barret whose gun failed him. A girl came down on a parachute and caught it.

"All right, who's been touching my material?" she asked.

"The bad guys, naturally" said Tifa. The girl growled and charged at Sin.

Denzel looked to Tifa. "Who's that?" he asked. She smiled as monsters surrounded us. I raised my blade to strike but a man dropped out of nowhere and hit them with a spear. He slung them around in a circle and flung them away from us.

"She's a beauty" he said as he pointed up. "My Shara, latest model." I stared up at in awe at the huge flying machine. It had helicopter-like blades. "I'll give you the grand tour afterward!" he yelled as he ran to the fight.

"Where can I buy a phone?" said a handsome dark-haired man with red eyes and a red mantle.

"Who's he?" asked Denzel.

"They're our friends" said Tifa.

"Names?" I asked.

"The first was Barret, then Yuffie, Cid and finally Vincent" she said.

I heard a motorcycle behind us and smiled as I turned around, my voice came out as a whisper, "Cloud…"


	7. Chapter 7: People Care

Cloud drove around in front of us and opened the sides of Fenrir. He pulled out a blade as he said, "Marlene will be safe, I took her home."

I caught myself staring at him. Never since I met him did he seem so attractive. Valiant – that's the word I would use. 'What are you thinking?' I screamed at myself in my head.

"I know what you're thinking" a voice spoke behind me. I turned around and looked at the man behind me.

"Zack" I said.

"C'mon, admit it! You like Cloud! You might even love him, am I right?" he teased.

"Do I?" I asked.

"Wow, I really do know you better than you know yourself" he laughed.

"You never did before you could get in my head" I growled.

"True" he said. "I know that you still blame yourself. I want you to stop. You have to move on."

"But…"

"No, I'm not going to forgive you for something I never blamed you for" he said. "Forgive yourself and move on!"

How could I move on? I loved Zack and I left before I could tell him. But… did I love Cloud, too? Zack really did know me better than I knew myself lately. Tifa saw it, too. Maybe I was so lost in my need for closure and forgiveness that I had lost myself.

The light around me began to fade. "No, wait!" I yelled. "Zack, I need to tell you…"

"I feel lighter" said Cloud as he stared out at the monster, the wind ruffling his hair. When had I come back to reality? "Maybe I lost some weight" he cast us a sideways glance as he pulled out another blade. "All that dilly dallying."

I saw Tifa smile. "I'm going to go back and see Marlene. Okay, Cloud. We'll wait for you" said Denzel before running off. He suddenly stopped and turned around. "We'll see you there, won't we Cloud?"

Cloud nodded; Denzel smiled and kept running. "What about you?" he asked.

"What about me?" I asked him, shifting uncomfortably under his stare. Looking at him now, it had suddenly all hit me. I was embarrassed, trying not to blush while holding his gaze. It had been so long since a man made me feel this way.

"Will you be okay?" he asked.

"I still have unfinished business" I said. I called Atlatl telepathically and she was by my side in an instant. As I leapt on her back I said, "It wasn't my fault, but now there are two things I'll never forgive myself for not doing. Right now, I'm okay physically, but I don't want to die before I've done those two things."

He nodded to me with a smile that nearly made me melt. Well, it wasn't much of a smile really, but still it was more than he'd shown before.

I reached into a secret compartment in my gear and pulled out a small glowing orb. "I hoped I'd never have to use this" I said, "But when people can get hurt, I have no choice."

"It's material" said Tifa. "But what kind? I've never seen any so dark."

I looked down at the deep purple glowing ball. "Of course you've never seen it before" I said. "Because I owned the only two that ever were forged. Negative material. It undoes summons and attacks by summons and other material related attacks. I used the first against Sephiroth many years ago. I've been holding onto this one for a while. I guess it's just time." I pressed the ball into my arm. A slightly purple aura seemed to surround my body. "Atlatl and I will stay on the ground. We can stop the destruction down here."

Cloud nodded and Tifa climbed onto the motorcycle behind him. I felt a pang of jealousy at her touching him. 'Great, more distractions' I thought as they drove off. "Let's go!" I said to Atlatl, nudging her side with my heel. I had a feeling that the real battle hadn't even started yet. 'One thing at a time' I told myself as Atlatl and I raced toward the giant creature.

As we got closer, I could see that the group was already fighting Sin. They seemed to work so well as a group, I didn't know how I would fit in. I did know one thing. They would need me off of the ground. "Sorry old friend, I'll have to leave you" I said to Atlatl.

"I'll be close by" she assured me as she stopped and flipped, launching me into the fray. I sped past the man called Barret as he was shooting at the creature. As it turned to attack him, it fired a blue ball of energy. I held out my arm and shot straight through it, latching onto the monster's tail as it pulled up. My goal was unclear, even to myself, but I had to jump off as it tried to smash me into a support beam. As I landed, Vincent came out of the flames of the blast and Cid leapt onto the creature's back.

Sin flew up and went to smash Cid into a support beam but the dog and cat team grabbed him and yanked him off of its back. They landed safely and Sin stopped and latched onto the side of a building. It screamed before flying back off and diving under a support beam past Vincent, who began shooting again. Sin turned around to charge him and he was soon flipping around its head and shooting again. Yuffie joined him as well. She ran up one of the beams and leapt off of it, throwing her shiruken.

The dog had latched itself onto the face of the monster as it turned to face Yuffie. It charged up another energy blast and began to fire. Cid jumped down and stabbed it with his spear in the head, redirecting the blast. I jumped at the creature again, trying to get between the blast and the beam it was headed to but I was too slow. It hit the beam and exploded. Barret was under the falling debris but before it could fall on him, someone came and grabbed him. They both landed safely and I pushed off a wall. I landed next to Cloud, who had been the one to grab Barret.

"Hey, how have you been?" yelled Barret.

Cloud looked at the creature and then to me and nodded. I gave him a quick nod back and charged my material. Cloud and I both launched ourselves at the same time. While Cloud struck at the creature's head, I flew past him and landed on it, running down its back and attempting to blast a wing off with my material. Cloud was forced away from Sin and I leapt off the tail. I leapt back onto the monster and ran up towards the head as it attacked Cloud again. He assembled his buster sword and I grabbed mine. We both attacked the head this time.

"Get off!" Cloud told me and I complied, leaping to the nearest beam. Cloud jumped high over the monster's head and began to glow light blue. He came back down and slammed his blade into Sin's head and caused it to plummet towards the ground. Cloud landed next to me and Sin writhed on the ground, way more pissed than before. Blue came from its mouth as it began to charge another blast. It began to ascend again and Cloud leapt up after it. I was going to follow but something else caught my attention.

I looked up at the building I knew my father was in. A white cloth fluttered down from the building. My father was standing and not under the blanket anymore. He was holding up a black box and a sensation I hadn't felt since I ran away filled me. I knew in an instant that it was Jenova.

A scream from Sin called me back to the fight at hand. Cloud was climbing higher and higher, each of his friends giving him a boost upwards as he got higher and higher. He began to glow blue, like a comet but during the day. Sin released his blue fireball at the ground, and Cloud as he advanced.

When Cloud hit the ball of blue energy, a small shock wave came from it. I watched, slightly in awe as he punctured right through and traveled upward through the inside. Each of his friends had landed safely near me. I looked around me and then back up to the ball, which I realized would destroy everything if it hit the ground.

"What are you doing!" I heard Tifa yell as I leapt off of the beam we were on. I mustered all the energy I had left in my materia and a quarter of the way up to the beast, I released it in a concentrated, dark purple ball that sped at the blue energy, hit the bottom with a metallic blast and a bright, still small, shockwave and caused it to instantly disperse as Cloud left the other side.

My momentum ceased to carry me upward and my energy was spent. I relaxed and allowed myself to freefall.

"Fayte!" I heard Tifa yell. I ignored her and watched silently as Cloud used his buster sword to slice open Sin's back as he ran up it. He left a trail of what seemed like blue fire in his wake and then leapt off of it when he reached its end.

I heard Sin let out a scream. It suddenly went up it what looked to be blue fire again and fell towards me. I knew that between hitting the ground and Sin hitting me, I would surely die. That thought in mind, I closed my eyes, hoping to black out before it happened.

"Fayte!" I heard Tifa scream again.

A soft smile graced my face. 'What a painless way to die' I thought. It would be much less painful than allowing the geostigma to kill me. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Would I suddenly see my life flash before my eyes? What would it be like to die? So many questions plagued me. A small voice in the back of my head screamed. I needed to be alive to do at least one of the things I still needed to do, but I was going to die now. What could I do but accept that and be at peace with my death. What did it really matter if I told him the truth? Cloud probably only saw me as a friend anyway.

A sudden jerk sideways brought me out of my thoughts. I was still in the air, what was going on? My eyes snapped open and I looked to see that Atlatl had leapt across the void and had my clothing in her teeth, pulling me through the air to safety.

We landed on a beam not far under the others. I hadn't fallen nearly as far as I thought I had. My senses returned to me as Sin crashed down through the beams not far from us. I then realized that I was still dangling in Atlatl's mouth. My mouth opened to tell her to put me down, but before I could say anything, she threw me. A pained yelp left me as I smacked into a vertical beam attached to the one we were on and then I fell in a heap on the one we were on.

I pushed myself up and moved to sit against the beam. She growled and bared her teeth at me as she approached me. I squeaked with fear, suddenly feeling cornered. I had never been so scared of her before, in fact, she had never been like this before. She'd never given me a reason to be scared.

"You cold, selfish, heartless, bitch!" she snarled at me. "Did you think you could just die and it would all go away? Look at the people up there, look at Cloud, or your father! They all consider you to be a friend and they care! What about me?"

I blinked, wide eyed. What could I say?

"Nothing" she growled. "Don't say anything. There's nothing you can say. just get up and get moving. It's not over."

A bright light suddenly came from the building my father was in. There was a blast and then I saw someone fall before an explosion claimed the floor they were on. "Father!" I screamed when I realized it was him falling, followed by Kadaj. Cloud suddenly landed next to me.

"Come on!" he said. I hopped on Atlatl who stumbled. The action made me look down to see a gash in her leg.

"Oh, no" I gasped.

"I'll be fine" she insisted. I shook my head and leaned down, planting a kiss on her head. My leg suddenly felt as if it was on fire. Cloud was already on his way so I urged her forward. Without pain, she took off as fast as she could and quickly caught up to him.

We ran beside Cloud and soon heard shots. Kadaj was close to catching it when my father shot the black box. Something green leaked out of it and then Kadaj grabbed it. Two more Turks who I recognized as Tseng and Elena shot out a net to catch my father as Kadaj landed on the ground.

Reno knocked Rude down as Kadaj looked at what he had in his hands. When Kadaj saw us coming, he jumped on his motorcycle and took off in the opposite direction followed by Yazoo and Loz. Cloud and I sped up right on their tails. I looked down at Atlatl. It had been so long since we had a good chase.

"Keep on Kadaj" I told her. She nodded and picked it up. We weren't going to let them get away.


	8. Chapter 8: Broken

Cloud was up by Kadaj and we were right on his tail as we raced through the city. Yazoo and Loz were right behind us, keeping pace but not getting closer. Atlatl was easily faster than one of these motorcycles, but I decided not to push her.

Kadaj suddenly took a left onto an old highway. He ran over the sign that was meant to keep people out and Cloud had to duck under it while Atlatl jumped it. Yazoo got up next to Cloud and began to fire while Loz got next to me and took a swing at me from his bike. Cloud swerved and drove around us and to the other and to the other side of Loz between him and the divider. Loz forced Cloud into the divider and got ready to punch him when Cloud opened up the sides of Fenrir and forced Loz quickly towards me. I delivered a well aimed kick to his head and he spun and dropped behind us.

Cloud pulled out a blade from Fenrir and I grabbed my buster sword at the same time. Yazoo drove around in front of us and shot. Cloud and I blocked with our blades and Cloud charged him. The two were soon a spinning mass of metal with blades locked together. They pushed off of each other and I brought the flat side of my blade to his face as Cloud righted himself and we went for Kadaj.

Kadaj took another road and I followed but Cloud was suddenly attacked by Loz, who leapt off his own bike and slammed his fist in the ground. Cloud was now below Kadaj and I so I would have to continue on my own. The feeling of being alone really hit me hard when Cloud entered the tunnel below us. I looked at Kadaj and frowned. Now, I was facing him one on one and I had more than enough reason to kill the man. He had kidnapped me and basically tortured me. "Get him" I growled in Atlatl's ear. Her stride suddenly changed and her speed increased dramatically.

"They hurt you. I'm going to claw out his internal organs!" she hissed.

"Then he'd hope you would get to him first. That's nothing compared to what I'll do" I said. I could feel her amusement.

"Now you're talking" she said as we caught up to him.

His first move was to draw his double blade and strike at me. I easily kicked his attack away. On Atlatl's back, I clearly had the higher ground. As he swung at me more, I drew my buster sword and split it so it was a long thin blade and the regular sword. I lashed out with the thinner blade, trying more to cut his arms, but he was good. He surprised me as he suddenly swung at Atlatl. She saw it coming and caught the blade in her mouth. Quickly, he jerked it out and I saw blood fly.

'Oh no' I thought.

"Don't worry" she said. "I'm fine, focus on the fight."

He must have seen my worry because he proceeded to lash out at her legs. I was caught blocking his blade from striking her. "Bastard" I growled. "Even if you do hit her, she won't go down that easily."

"Okay" I said to her. "Let's employ a new trick." I got up and balanced myself so I was standing on her back. We dropped behind Kadaj and I tossed three knives trying to get him. While the knives distracted him I leapt forward off of Atlatl and landed on the back of his bike. He swung but I flipped over his head to the front of his bike and swung at him.

He blocked and the force of the slamming together forced me into the air. I was free flying ahead of him and Atlatl was running at a safe distance. He attacked while I was in the air, twirling his blade around, the sound of the air whistling around it filled my ears.

Somehow, I ended up upside down and I took the opportunity to curl up so I dropped back and landed backwards on Atlatl. An explosion in the tunnel below us alerted me to Cloud's position. Kadaj had noticed it too and glared at me. I flipped so I was facing the right way on Atlatl and urged her forward. Another explosion occurred underneath us, smaller this time.

We neared a ramp that went down beside the tunnel and Kadaj played a dirty trick. He had a piece of metal from somewhere, though I had no clue where. With barely a glance, he tossed it over his shoulder and sped up. Atlatl barely had time to think, much less dodge, as it came bouncing back towards us. I gasped right before it struck her right, front paw. She stumbled and threw me off. I slammed my buster sword into the ground to slow myself down and came to a stop. She skidded to a stop next to me and we looked over to see Reno and Rude by the tunnel with some type of explosive.

I gave her paw a once-over before Cloud raced out of the tunnel. I hopped on her back and raced in the direction that Kadaj had gone in. We were catching up to him when the explosion suddenly went up in fireworks and threw Cloud off of the roadway above us. He landed nearly on top of Kadaj and they locked blades. The tires on the bikes squealed as they slid sideways and I looked past them to see that the road stopped and gave way to the city below.

"Stop, Atlatl" I ordered her. Cloud and Kadaj kept going and slid off the end of the road but we managed to stop at the very edge.

"Do you want me to follow?" she asked.

"I wouldn't ask you to jump that" I replied. "Let's find a safer way down." She turned around and began to walk away from the edge and I took the moment to place my buster sword back into its holder. I wasn't paying attention to what she was doing because I trusted her, so when she took off at a run it was completely unexpected. My head snapped up and my eyes widened as I saw we were headed straight towards the drop-off. "What are you doing?" I screamed as she leapt and bucked me off at the same time. She grabbed my clothes and pulled me in front of her. Her body tucked around me, muffling my senses. Just as before, time seemed to slow while we were in the air. It wasn't long, probably even shorter than it seemed, before she hit the ground with a sickening "thud." Despite her cushion, I was still jarred around and I lost sense of what was going on. I knew she was still moving, rolling or sliding, I couldn't tell, but that was all I really knew.

She suddenly came to a stop and I rolled out of her grasp and slid to a stop several feet away. I slowly moved my elbows under my body and forced myself up off the ground. My vision was blurry and took a moment to clear and my body screamed in pain. I looked around until my eyes settled upon the lump of white fur not far from me. It didn't take me long to realize that she wasn't moving.

I stood and walked over to her side. "Latl-ka?" I asked, using a nickname I hadn't used in years. She didn't respond so I fell to my knees and nudged her paw. "Atlatl" I said. She still didn't stir. "Wake up" I whimpered. Why wasn't she moving? "Wake up" I pushed hard on her arm again. Tears began to form in my eyes. The harsh reality of what had happened began to hit home. "You can't be dead" I said softly. "Atlatl" I shook my head. "Atlatl!" I screamed.

"Fayte!" her voice filled my ears.

"Atlatl?" I said as I moved next to her head.

"I'll be fine" she breathed. "Go help him. He needs you."

"But you…"

"Go!" a light growl left her throat. "I promise I'm not going anywhere."

"If you die, I'll kill you" I snapped as I turned to run.

"Silly girl" she chuckled as I ran. "I think you could do it, too."

I ran between the destroyed buildings in the direction I had seen Cloud go in. It helped that there were tire tracks that I could follow because I would have been lost without them. I felt guilty for leaving Atlatl but something told me that she would be in more trouble if I took her with me. Something big was definitely going to happen whether we tried to stop it or not.

I could run fairly fast, even in my condition, but I couldn't outrun a motorcycle. My hope was that they would have stopped somewhere to fight or something. There was a crash, about a half a mile away by the way it sounded. It was also in the same direction that the tracks were leading me. 'Good deal' I thought as I approached one of the more intact buildings. An old church was what it looked like. I was shocked when Kadaj suddenly rode out of the top and onto another path and water began to pour out of the top of the building.

Soon after Kadaj and the water, Cloud rode out of the front and nearly passed me. He skidded to a stop and rode back to me. "Where's Atlatl?" he asked.

"She's hurt" I said and I shook my head sadly.

He slid back on the seat of Fenrir. "Get on."

I involuntarily took a step back. It didn't even register to me that I had done it until he said "Hey, something wrong?"

"I just don't like those things" I said with a sigh.

"You ride a giant cat with nothing to hold you down, who goes faster than this" he stated.

"Yeah, but I trust her with my life even when she's being stupid" I said.

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"Yeah, but…"

"Get on" he demanded.

"Okay" I said as I got on in front of him. He put one arm around me and I looked down to see that it was not only his left arm but there was no geostigma. "Cloud, your geostigma…"

"It's healed. We can fix you, too" he said.

"But we have things to do" I frowned. "Let's go."

"Where did he go?" Cloud asked.

"Over that way" I said as I pointed to the old SOLDIER complex.

"Okay" he said as he turned his bike and sped off in that direction, never taking his arm away from me. It was a good thing, too, because I as clinging to that arm for dear life. He sped up unexpectedly, causing me to squeak in fear. A chuckle of amusement escaped him at that and I felt my face heat up. My face heated up more at the thought of how funny that would look. Half my face would be red and the other was covered by makeup.

'Get a hold of yourself!' I yelled in my head, but I couldn't help but realize how easily he had made me lose my constitution.

We suddenly began slowing down and I looked up to see that Kadaj was standing on a elevated and broken old chunk of the nearby complex. When Cloud stopped, I climbed off and he opened the sides of Fenrir and pulled out parts of his buster sword. I followed his lead as we stepped away from Fenrir and he glared at Kadaj.

"Brother, I'm with her at last" Kadaj said.

"So, what's going to happen now?" asked Cloud.

Kadaj smiled down at the box under his arm "Mother's going to tell me."

"I guess a remnant wouldn't really know" said Cloud.

Kadaj's smile disappeared and he looked down at the box again. "So what if I'm a puppet?" he replied. He raised his hand and blue energy surrounded it. "Once upon a time…" he said as he turned slightly away. "You were, too!" He turned back to us and launched several balls from the one in his hand. Cloud dodged out of the way and leapt at Kadaj while I brought my arm up and used my materia to block the attack. A dust cloud was thrown up around me both from Cloud's jump and Kadaj's attack. I leapt out of it to see the two men already fully engaged in battle. Neither of them could hit each other and then they managed to get some distance between them and Kadaj leapt up to higher ground.

When we got to the top, I managed to get behind him, making him block me and Cloud. We fought for a short time in a series of spinning moves before Kadaj suddenly looked up. The Sierra came in fast and stopped suddenly. It hovered up above us as we continued our fight. Cloud and I exchanged a look and then charged Kadaj. We began to rapidly change positions as we ran up to a spherical building and then onto a ledge. The ledge was small so when I ended up behind Cloud, I couldn't do much to help. Cloud was suddenly disarmed by Kadaj and he took a swing anyway, making Kadaj flee.

Cloud leapt off of where we were standing. He flew through the air and grabbed his blade before landing for a moment and then launching himself again. The two of them met in the air and ended up on another spherical building. I was racing just to stay near them. Cloud was a bigger threat than I was. With a strong swing, they separated. They glared for a moment before Kadaj ran forward and jumped high at Cloud, who put his buster sword together and spun it, causing it to take on a blue glow like before. Kadaj came down on Cloud and let out a yell as he slammed his sword down but Cloud easily deflected him and sent him over the edge of the building. Cloud began to walk to the edge of the building and signaled for me to follow. We both leapt down onto the ledge Kadaj was dangling from. By the looks of it, Kadaj was defeated. He glared up at us and I began to wonder what Cloud was going to do. Suddenly, Kadaj threw the box, distracting both of us long enough to jump and catch it as its green contents leaked out. He took whatever was in the box out and then looked to us.

"My reunion" he said with a smile. "Bet you're dying to watch."

"No," I said, I knew what that meant. Cloud and I both launched ourselves down after him. Black mist came from what Kadaj was holding. Some of the mist stained his face as we neared him. A ringing filled my ears and the ground got closer. Kadaj righted himself and almost floated to the ground and put his hands up before Cloud hit him. Cloud's impact caused a huge dent in the metal Kadaj was standing on and I landed not far away. My eyes widened in shock as Kadaj's hair got much longer and a green flame shot out, a sword as long as I was tall forming in that flame. I didn't hear what he said to Cloud but I stood still in shock and fear. He easily forced Cloud away from him and up into the sky before turning to me. I whimpered and stepped back as he approached me. The feeling of his hand on my cheek made me flinch.

I found myself staring into the green-blue eyes of Sephiroth. "Hello, Dear."


	9. Chapter 9: Nightmare

"Sephiroth" I whispered. He was now gripping my face to make me stare at him.

"Geostigma would look beautiful on you if you didn't hide it" he said, his voice as alluring as I remembered.

"I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or not" I said, finally regaining my composure. "But I've never taken compliments from my nightmares."

His grip tightened on my face. "You would know all about nightmares, wouldn't you?" he asked. "You created plenty of them for yourself."

"Bastard. I may not have been there the first time, but I won't miss my chance this time around" I growled.

"You can't miss a chance you don't get" he said. I opened my mouth to reply but he slapped me so hard I saw stars. I blacked out for a moment and when I looked back up Sephiroth was already gone, flipping up to chase Cloud. My senses screamed. He really hit me hard, but I shook my head to clear it and quickly jumped up after them.

I had to make a couple of jumps to reach the top and when I did, I nearly ran into Cloud as Sephiroth landed above us. "Your geostigma is gone?" he said to Cloud. "That's too bad. Then again, I shouldn't be surprised. I never thought I would see Fayte alive again."

"Sephiroth, what do you want?" asked Cloud as I ignored his comment about me.

"The last thoughts of geostigma's dead" said Sephiroth. "These remnants will join the lifestream and girdle the planet, choking it, corroding it. What I want, Cloud, is to sail the darkness of the cosmos with this planet as my vessel – just as my mother did long ago."

Sephiroth lifted his hand to he sky and, when he opened it, what appeared to be dark clouds swirled viciously above us. My eyes widened as I realized that what he had summoned was the exact part of the lifestream he had been talking about. Cloud suddenly gripped his sword.

"Then one day, we'll find a new planet and on its soil we'll create a shining future" Sephiroth finished.

"What about this planet?" asked Cloud.

"Well, that's up to you, Cloud" he said. He brought his hand down and he and Cloud launched at each other.

The dark lifestream came down towards the ground like a huge ghost. It began to swirl and consume the main ShinRa complex and the broken buildings around it. My geostigma began to burn but I ignored it. I had to help Cloud.

Sephiroth and Cloud were fighting on the tops of some spherical structures not far from me. Cloud was forced away from Sephiroth and then Sephiroth flew around and slammed Cloud into a building. I took that moment as my chance to leap up and attack. Sephiroth fended me off, shoving me away and then going after Cloud, now in the building. What disturbed me was what I thought I heard him say. "I don't want to have to hurt you."

'Why?' I thought as blue light erupted from their swords with each strike inside the building. I debated following them into the building but I didn't want to get in Cloud's way. He honestly was doing very well on his own. I also wasn't sure if Sephiroth would fight back if I tried to fight him.

Suddenly Sephiroth was thrown out of the building and quickly leapt up it. I leapt quickly up after him and charged my own buster sword with the energy in the air around me. When I swung it at him, a white arc of energy left it and shot at him. He dodged it and it sliced off a large chunk of the building above us. I was forced to dodge it and watch as it fell toward Cloud who had just emerged from the building. Sephiroth followed the building chunk and attacked Cloud. After a few seconds of fighting, Cloud slammed his blade into the ground and caused three grooves to shoot from his blade, but Sephiroth dodged that, too.

Sephiroth landed high on a nearby building and cut a chunk of it out, making it fly at Cloud. Cloud pushed off of it and Sephiroth followed, attacking again as they landed on a building. Their blades met with a small shockwave and then Cloud threw Sephiroth back. As he followed, Sephiroth easily fended him off.

"I've thought of a wonderful present for you" said Sephiroth as he sliced off a part of the building and Cloud sliced it in half and followed him. I watched as they fought. It felt like it was all I could do. I was going to watch as Sephiroth once again destroyed everything I had and had come to love just by being alive.

"No!" I yelled as the building above me now suddenly began to fall apart. I mustered all of my energy and shot up off the ground in one leap. There was a look of shock on Cloud's face as I shot up past him. The debris did little to stop my ascent, and I soon met Sephiroth's blade. As I attacked, he blocked me but refused to fight back.

"Bastard" I said, slicing some debris out of my way. "Why won't you fight me?"

He smirked and blocked me some more. "I do not want to damage you, Dear" he said.

"Stop calling me that" I growled. "Since when do you care if you damage me?"

"Since I chose you to sail the cosmos with me" he said. "You are the closest thing to Jenova now that she is gone. We are meant to sail the cosmos together."

"I would die before I would do that" I growled.

"That's why I'm not going to let you harm yourself" he smirked.

"I would find a way" I sneered, quickly tiring of his idea.

"I could give you all you dream of when we find a new world" he offered.

"I've only ever had one dream and that was to live a normal life! No Jenova, no SOLDIER, no geostigma, and a family! How could you ever give me that?" I yelled.

"Where we go, I can give you all of that" he stated.

"Well, maybe I don't want it from you!" I yelled. "Maybe I want the friends I have now and maybe I want the rest from Cloud!"

"So, you're in love with him?" he asked.

My eyes widened as our blades locked. I had just openly admitted my feelings in front of him. "Yes, I love him" I whispered.

"Then let me take away what you love" he said as he forced me away and turned to face Cloud, who had just come up through the debris.

"Cloud!" I yelled as their blades met again and the white sparks flew like they had in the buildings. I came back down between them, attacking Sephiroth from behind. He had to block both of us as we landed on a falling block and another collided with it. As we leapt off, I slung my buster sword at Sephiroth, four smaller blades detaching from it, forcing him to block them all while fighting Cloud. Our movements were so fast I could barely keep track of them. I was fighting like I had in my old days, my days at SOLDIER. It was obvious that I wasn't as strong as I used to be, but I was still quick and agile. Every move I made was instinct.

Sephiroth was moving faster than both of us and two chunks of building collided and Cloud leapt to slice it in half. He then leapt through what was left of the debris. I looked down and saw that we were coming close to the ground. Before Sephiroth could see what was going on, I leapt up after Cloud and landed by his side. He staggered a bit and fell down like he was hurt. Had he been? While we were fighting, I hadn't seen anything. Sephiroth shot up next to us and Cloud rolled out of the way as he brought his blade down.

"Sephiroth!" I yelled. He turned to me in time to block my first downward swing.

"You still insist on fighting me" he said.

"You won't take what I love away again!" I said. I swung my blade in a circle and brought it down on him. He blocked and was quickly drawn into a fight with me. He countered each of my moves and swung at me. I dodged easily and split my buster sword into two again. I lashed out with both, picking up speed in hope of hitting him at least once. My swings became wider and more powerful as we fought and green sparks flew from between our blades. I was getting closer and closer to striking him and I was almost there. All I needed was one slip up and I would have him… and then my leg gave out.

"Agh!" I screamed as I fell to my knees. Pain spread through my geostigma covered body parts, but it was different this time. This time, instead of staying in the parts of my body that were infected, it spread. I tried to move but every movement was met with pain. Sephiroth laughed.

"It looks like your geostigma is acting up, before we leave I'll fix that, but until then it will keep you out of my hair" he said as he turned and went after Cloud again. I managed to flip myself to my back so I could watch them, but fear filled me as he easily overpowered Cloud. Cloud and Sephiroth locked blades for a moment and then Sephiroth forced Cloud to the side and punched him. He stumbled and then rolled but Sephiroth barely gave him the opportunity to stand before he attacked again and shoved him. Sephiroth struck out multiple times with his blade before hitting Cloud hard, sending him flying before he slammed into what was left of a wall. Cloud slumped to the ground, seeming senseless for a moment as I watched Sephiroth stalk over to him. I opened my mouth to scream, anything to warn Cloud, but nothing came out and I was paralyzed. Everything had lost feeling. My arms and legs were numb and barely movable. It was then that it hit me; I was dying. The stigma was finally going to kill me.

My mind came back to reality as Sephiroth stabbed Cloud's right shoulder. It wasn't a killing blow, but my heart still cried out for him. Sephiroth stood over Cloud, not making another move. "Tell me what you cherish most" he said. Cloud brought his left arm up and grabbed the sword's blade. "Give me the pleasure of taking it away."

Cloud's head snapped up and he pulled Sephiroth's sword out of his shoulder, slamming it into the wall behind him and then swinging at him causing him to jump back. As he stood and faced him, Cloud spoke. "I pity you" he said. "You just don't get it at all." Sephiroth charged him and leapt high above Cloud as he struck. He landed above Cloud for a moment on a tall, skinny, red structure and leapt off as Cloud followed. "There's not a think I don't cherish!" said Cloud and he spun his sword so it glowed blue. Sephiroth smirked and got ready to block when Cloud swung his sword and it came apart into five glowing, blue pieces. The pieces surrounded Sephiroth in the air and he seemed stunned as Cloud took on an orange glow and proceeded to strike him once with each blade so they glowed orange as they floated around him and then took a bit of a blue glow on as well as he shot above him. When he came back down, he struck him and broke the circle of blades, around which the orange glow had taken the form of him, before landing on the ground. The blades fell to stick point down in the ground as he stood and then caught the main blade. He shot me a smile and then looked up at Sephiroth as the clouds broke and sunlight hit his face, making him seem like an angel.

"Stay where you belong," he stated, "in my memories."

Sephiroth's one black wing appeared out of his back. "I will never be a memory" he said and the wing wrapped fully around him and then he and the wing melted away into feathers to reveal Kadaj. Kadaj fell to the ground and on his knees, fighting to get back up. When he finally did get up, he charged Cloud but fell again before he got there. Cloud caught him as he calmed down.

"Brother…" Kadaj said as he looked at him. Cloud's eyes seemed sad and Kadaj looked away and up to the sky. "Huh?" he asked. He must have heard something. Rain suddenly began to fall. I smiled weakly. It had been so long since I felt rain. Kadaj closed his fist and said "Mother… is that…" A tear left his eye and he reached his hand to the sky. He seemed to grip something in the air and then his hand turned to green energy, his body followed. The energy looked a lot like the lifestream.

'A better place… that's where he's going' I thought. As he completely dissolved and the particles flew off, Cloud stood and looked up, watching them float off into the sky. I smiled because I knew it, now. This rain would take away the geostigma and cure the children. It was too late for me, but I could be content and die happy, knowing everyone would be okay. My eyes closed and opened again as the scent of geostigma slowly left the city. I could smell my father's leaving, too, and I had never been so happy. The Sierra flew in and hovered above us and Cloud looked at me, his eyes filling with concern. I gave him a sad smile and he began to walk towards me, but a glow behind him alerted me. When I saw Yazoo and Loz I wanted to yell to Cloud, tell him to watch out, but when I opened my mouth no sound came out. I watched in horror as a bullet ripped through his chest and he stumbled forward.

"Cloud!" I screamed, momentarily finding my voice. I didn't hear what was said, but I did see Cloud get up, his face in pain, and charge them. Red fabric suddenly surrounded me and someone picked me up as there was an explosion. 'He can't be… gone' I thought as I blacked out.


	10. 10: Why Do I Deserve a Happy Ending?

I hadn't been out long when I woke up in a pair of strong arms. "Cloud?" I asked, half awake. When I his scent reached my nose, I knew I was wrong. "No… you smell wrong" I stated. My eyes slowly opened to reveal the one they called Vincent.

"I'm afraid I'm not the one you seek" he said.

"Is he dead?" I asked.

"We think he's alive. We're going to him now" he said.

"No, the explosion, he must be dead" I muttered. "Soon, I will be, too."

"No" I heard Tifa say as she walked. "What would make you say that? You won't die."

"That's where you're wrong" I said, suddenly feeling very calm and at peace with myself. "You see, I have the stigma. I've had it nearly as long as it has existed. It started nearly immediately after the fighting ended. I've had it so long, lived in secret pain. Cloud gave my life meaning. Helping him gave me a real reason to live. Now, the stigma is going to take me and I don't think anything can stop that."

"Don't talk like that" said Tifa. "We'll find a way to fix you."

"No, Tifa, please don't" I said as I began to feel my remaining life slip away. "Tell Cloud that I…" I didn't know if I finished because I blacked out.

I wasn't out that long before I felt a pair of lips on my own. My eyes fluttered open, expecting to see Vincent, or maybe even Cloud, but it was neither. When I saw who it was, I closed my eyes again and wrapped my arms around him, deepening the kiss, my first, with the first man I had loved. He slowly pulled away and I opened my eyes again.

"Zack" I whispered. He took my hand and helped me stand up.

"That's what you wanted to tell me" he said smugly. "You loved me."

"Am I dead?" I asked.

"No, you're not" he said. "And you can't let go. Cloud needs you and he cares.

"He doesn't need me anymore. He'll be okay on his own. He has Tifa" I said.

"You don't mean that" he said. I frowned because he was right. I didn't mean it. "Now, back to this love thing… why didn't you ever tell me?"

"Zack, I wanted to. I wanted to so badly, but then I ran away" I explained. "The night I left… if you had kissed me… I would have stayed. I couldn't have left." I said.

"So I guess it doesn't count if I do it now…" he muttered.

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Before I met Aerith, I loved you, too" he said. "But it shouldn't make a difference now. You'll be happy with Cloud. We just don't have room for you here, yet. I loved you, that's why I want you to live. Go get yourself a normal life. We all know you deserve it. Don't hide anymore, Fayte. Don't blame yourself anymore. Your parents were monsters and now that I think about it, had I kissed you and you stayed, I never would have forgiven myself when I saw the monster you had become."

"Zack…"

"Hell, if you had stayed, Project F would have been a success and you would have never forgiven yourself. There would be a thousand more like you. I know you would have hated yourself for that" he smiled. "Things are better this way."

"It doesn't matter" I said. "I'm still going to die."

"No, you won't. Cloud will fix you and you can have your second kiss with him… seeing how I stole your first" he smirked.

"Why you little…"

"Open your eyes" he said. Cheering filled my ears. It came from children but soon stopped. I opened my eyes to find that I was being carried by Vincent to Cloud, who was waist deep in water.

"It's not good" said Vincent as he bent down and handed me off to Cloud. I had to admit that the cool water felt good on my searing skin but did nothing more for me.

Cloud carried me a bit deeper into the pool before saying "Why isn't it working?"

I knew why. "Cloud… my clothes… waterproof" I struggled to say.

"What do I do?" he asked.

If I could, I would have laughed. It was such a stupid, obvious question. "Take them off" I wheezed. His eyes widened and then he nodded. His hands fumbled to unbuckle my cover dress but he finally did and it sank to the bottom of the pool like a rock. I felt him tug this way and that on my shirt but he couldn't remove it.

"I can't get it" he said.

"I have a knife on my inner thigh. Use it" I said. My heart fluttered as his hand brushed my thigh when he grabbed the knife but was interrupted by metal on my skin. He wasted no time cutting up the middle of my shirt. His carelessness caused him to cut my bra, too, but I didn't care. He quickly peeled it off to reveal my geostigma, which immediately glowed green and began to evaporate. Once my shirt and bra were completely off and the water was working on my arm, he took my boots off and cut off my leggings, being a bit more careful about my panties. I gasped as the water hit that geostigma and I felt relief fill me.

"What about your face?" he suddenly asked.

"Rub it off" I said. "I know it will hurt, just do it."

I closed my eyes as he put pressure on my cheek and rubbed hard. It hurt at first but once water touched a little of the geostigma, the following reaction caused the rest of my makeup to become useless. It was as if all my makeup melted off. Cloud put more water on my face to be sure, but I knew it was gone. I felt my energy slowly coming back to me. Carefully, I placed my feet on the bottom of the pool, trying to stand, but I wasn't that strong yet and I fell against Cloud.

"You'll be okay, now" he said.

"I love you" I whispered, not caring if he heard me.

"You love me?" he asked. I nodded against his chest.

"Then I'll admit I was scared to lose you" he said. "Because, even though I haven't known you long, I think I feel the same." I was shocked as he shifted me in his arms and tilted my head up. He was smiling and his beautiful blue eyes were sparkling. We drew closer and he placed a hand under my chin to steady me. My heart sped up as our lips met and I found that I had enough strength to put my arms around his neck and pull him closer. His arms around me were gentle and his lips were incredibly soft. I nearly fainted at the contact. A very light moan escaped me as he slipped his tongue into my mouth and massaged my own with it. After a few minutes, we withdrew from need of air. Cheers filled the air again and I smiled up at Cloud again.

"Thank you for saving me" I said.

"Don't mention it" he smiled back. He looked up at the doors to the church and I looked, too. Zack and Aerith were in the doorway.

"You see? Everything's all right" said Aerith. Zack gave a small smile before walking out with her. Cloud smiled and for a moment, I heard his thoughts.

'I know… I'm not alone. Not anymore.'

I turned back to him and placed my head on his chest, the day's beating was finally catching up to me. As my eyes closed I whispered "I'm tired."

I was surprised to hear Cloud say "Then sleep. I'll take care of you." I smiled and nodded as I let sleep take me and I fell into a safe and comfortable darkness.


	11. Epilogue: Aftershock

I awoke on a very soft and comfortable matress. It was warm, too. "Am I dead?" I asked. "Maybe I'm in the lifestream now, or maybe I missed and landed on Cloud Nine" I muttered to myself. The bed under me chuckled.

"Close enough" it said. I shot up and found myself looking at the bare chest of Cloud. My mouth dropped and I gaped at all his sexy godliness. I was nearly drooling as he sat up and gave me a kiss, snapping me out of it. He also wrapped his arms around me and pulled me back down with him when he laid back down. I settled back down against him as I remembered what had happened. "You're really quiet" he suddenly stated.

"You're really sexy" I said as our skin rubbed together. 'Wait… skin!' I thought and I looked down to see I had no shirt or bra on and it felt like I was only in my panties and him in his boxers. My face flushed red.

"You should see yourself" he said. "More than just your geostigma changed."

Feeling braver, I got up and walked over to the full length mirror in the room, ignoring Cloud's stare, and saw that not only did my skin look normal, but my hair had changed colors, too. Now there was orange in it that started four inches from the roots and turned blond again at the tips.

"My old color!" I smiled. "This was my hair color before Jenova" I indicated the orange.

"So you're not as blond anymore" he stated. It didn't sound like a joke but I got the idea. I stalked over to the bed and pounced on him. We struggled and wrestled until we hit the floor in a tangle of blankets.

The door flew open to reveal Reno. "Are you okay? I heard a thud… is anyone, oh… I see you're busy… I'll come back later" he said. The look on his face was priceless. He quickly exited but not before saying "Your dad is waiting for you to wake up."

"My dad?" I asked. "That's right! His stigma is gone, too."

I untangled myself from the blankets and Cloud and looked around for my clothes. "Looking for this?" Cloud asked, throwing my dress in my face. "Sorry, your boots aren't dry yet and your shirt and leggings were ruined."

"That's okay" I smiled as I slid my arms into the dress. "All that was to cover my geostigma. Since I don't have it anymore, there's no need, and I'll go barefoot." I buckled up the dress and turned to Cloud, who was also nearly dressed. His vest-shirt was still open though so I took the opportunity to walk over to him and zip it up. I used the collar of his shirt to pull him down to me and give him a quick peck on the lips. He smiled and watched as I then walked away, swinging my hips a little with each step.

I sauntered down the stairs and into the bar where I saw the whole gang and they were all drinking. 'Really? This early!' I thought as I ordered some vodka, which I downed like a shot.

The room seemed to grow silent at my presence. I smiled and walked over to my father. "You wanted to see me?" I asked.

"I just wanted to see if you were okay" he said.

"More than okay" I said with a smile as a pair of strong arms wrapped around my waist.

"She'll be just fine…" said Cloud from behind me.

"Cloud, I would like to talk to you about my daughter" my father suddenly said. My jaw hit the floor. Father was going to give Cloud the "talk." I almost started laughing when I realized someone was still missing.

"Where's Atlatl?" I asked no one in particular.

"The garage" Reno answered me. "Would you like to see her?"

I looked over to see Cloud and my father still talking. "Yeah, let's go" I answered. Reno turned and started off in that direction and I waved to Cloud and followed. We entered the garage and I immediately saw Atlatl covered in bandages and splints.

"We found her under some rubble. She was nearly dead, but the best doctors looked at her. She'll be fine" he explained.

"Thank you" I whispered as I walked to her side and laid against her stomach. She woke as I stroked the fur on her side.

"You're okay" she purred. "That's good."

"You don't look so good" I said.

"I feel fine" she said. "Be better in no time."

"I hope so" I smiled.

"You smell like him" she said. "But not as if you've done anything. What does this mean?"

"We're together" I said. "But we haven't said it. No need to."

"That's good" she said.

"Reno, leave us" I requested. He nodded and walked out. Right after he left, Cloud walked in.

"Your father laid down some ground rules but I guess he's okay with us" he told me as he walked over. I motioned for him to sit by me and rest on Atlatl's stomach like I was.

"It's strange" I said.

"What is?" asked Cloud.

"Sephiroth wanted me to come with him. He offered everything I wanted, but he wouldn't have ever given it to me. Yet, you haven't tried to and you already have." I said.

"What did you want?" he asked.

"I wanted a normal life and a family. I wanted someone who I didn't have to run from who could care. You've come closer to doing that for me than anyone ever has" I said.

"Anything I can do" he said. "So, what will you do now?"

"Stay here of course" I laughed. "Help with the bar… I'm done running. The meaning of my life used to be to die. You gave my life new meaning so I'm not going anywhere soon."

"Good" he said as he pulled me to his chest. "Your father would have killed me if I let you go."

"I don't know where I was going before" I said. "I told Tifa I wouldn't see the end of my journey but here I am and I've done more than just see it." I smiled and laid my head on his shoulder. "It was also nice to know that the only person that blamed me for the state of the world was me. Zack never blamed me, that's what mattered."

"I don't think Zack would blame you anyway" said Cloud.

"Probably not" I admitted. "But it helped to hear him say it."

"Do you know we only met two days ago?" he asked.

"Feels a lot longer, doesn't it?"

"I feel like I've known you for years."

"Ditto" I smiled. "But, think about it. If I hadn't run away and Sephiroth hadn't gone crazy, we may have known each other a lot longer by now." My mind wandered for a moment and I realized something new. In a way, the past few years had been resolved in these two days and that made those two days feel like years. "I can't believe that two days ago, my whole purpose in life was to die and hurt as few people as possible doing it. Now you've given my life a new meaning and me a reason to live. I didn't really have any plans because I thought I was going to die. Now that I'm staying, I don't know if I'll know what to do with myself."

Cloud chuckled. "You can always keep me company on deliveries."

"No, I hate those motorcycles."

"You'll have to get used to it someday. After all, you do ride a large cat."

"Atlatl" I corrected him. "And she cares about my safety. Does your bike care about yours?"

"Fenrir" he corrected me this time. "And I'm slightly insulted that you don't trust my skills as a driver."

I pouted. There was no winning this. "Fine, if you're nice, I'll try riding with you. But you have to agree to try to ride Atlatl."

His jaw dropped and he looked at her as if he wasn't sure and then said "Deal." I exploded into a fit of laughter and rolled so I was laying in his lap. "Glad you think it's funny" he muttered.

"Sorry, I just can't believe you agreed" I giggled.

"Well, I did" he said indignantly. "I hope you're happy."

"I am happy, Cloud" I smiled. "And it's because of you."

"Glad I could help" he chuckled.

I closed my eyes and snuggled into his stomach. This was what it was like to have a normal life, and this man had made it possible.

"Thank you, for everything, Cloud."


End file.
